


So real in the dark

by josephides



Category: Alpha and Omega - Patricia Briggs, Mercy Thompson Series - Patricia Briggs
Genre: Angst, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Sex, Shameless Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:34:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24822433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/josephides/pseuds/josephides
Summary: She glanced up at Bran’s eyes and quickly back down again. Bran Cornick, Marrok of the wolves of North America, with his sun-kissed sandy hair, was watching her like she was a snack.Updated with new Chapter: What happened when Leah finds out.
Relationships: Adam Hauptman/Mercy Thompson, Bran Cornick/Leah Cornick, Bran Cornick/Mercy Thompson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

“That’s… disgusting,” Lauren said behind her cup, as if the plastic would somehow protect her eyes.

Mercy wasn’t doing much better. She had covered her face with her hands but had spread her fingers so she could look. “Ugh. His tongue is _so big_.”

“Well at least _that_ has its uses,” her friend said.

Mercy’s laugh was a surprised one, because filthy jokes that she understood were still pretty new to her. “Gross.” She slapped Lauren. “I’m gonna get a soda from the kitchen. Remember, she’s _not_ supposed to go home with him.”

Char’s boyfriend was a senior but she had a rule about sleeping with guys the first two weeks of knowing them – no matter how much time they spent together – and Mercy and Lauren had been instructed to stop her from giving in to her baser nature. Mercy thought this rule was particularly stupid but Char was adamant it made for better relationships. “It’s all about anticipation,” she claimed, airily. Unlike Mercy, Char had come to college not a virgin and Mercy often found herself bowing to Char’s sexual wisdom. Freshman year had freed Mercy – relatively speaking – from her virginity but Char was still up on the boyfriend experience stakes.

The kitchen was a bombsite – they usually were. A couple were necking in the corner, the counters and floors were littered with empty drinks and spilt drinks and the whole room reeked of stale beer and cigarettes. She suspected the hygiene standards of the current occupants hadn’t exactly been high before a bunch of college students had stomped through the house and endeavored not to use her coyote nose too much. She started going through the soda bottles on the counter, lightly sniffing them, trying to find something that wasn’t tainted with alcohol. She’d had plenty to drink before the party – it was really the only way to deal with them – and was pleasantly tipsy now. She just needed to maintain that feeling without tipping over into stupid drunk.

“Sorry,” Mercy said, when she turned around, a bottle of diet lemonade that no one had touched in her hand, and bumped into a guy. She glanced up briefly, oh, he was super cute, wait – Her brain screeched to a halt. “Bran?”

Out of context, Bran was unrecognizable. A blue T-shirt with a faded Superman logo, jeans and sneakers, his floppy hair falling into his eyes – he fitted into these surroundings completely. But he didn’t fit, she told herself. He wasn’t supposed to be here, in this kitchen, holding a red plastic cup looking—looking—

“Who’s Bran?” he said, tilting his head to the side.

Before she could respond, Char stumbled to her side. “Ooooh, _cute_ , Mercy,” Char said, looking Bran up and down appreciatively. “Hi. I’m Char.” She stuck out her hand and Mercy watched her best friend shake the hand of the most dangerous werewolf in the world.

“Hello,” he said, smiling. He _was_ disarmingly cute, Mercy thought. She had never thought of Bran as cute before. She accepted the cup Char thrust at her – vodka something. She drank half of it quickly.

“Sooooo, Anthony is going to take me back to his,” Char said, turning on Mercy.

“No, don’t do it, don’t,” Mercy said in a monotone, dragging her eyes away from Bran, who was sipping his drink and moving slightly to the beat of the music. Something was weird about this, she thought. Weirder than him being there.

Char rolled her eyes. “You and Lauren are useless.” Perilously aware that they were being listened in to, Mercy stuck her tongue out at her friend. “You’ll be all right?” Char’s eyes flicked to Bran and back again. She waggled her eyebrows.

Mercy felt herself blush. “I’ll be fine.”

“Cool. Lauren’s hooking up with Darius again, by the way.”

Mercy’s wince was reflexive, and mirrored on Char’s face. Darius was Lauren’s frequent one-night-stand. “Oh, no, really? Should we do something?”

“She’s a grown-ass woman. She can sleep with him and hate herself again in the morning. It’ll be good for her.”

Mercy wasn’t so sure about that – she still, ultimately, felt sex should be something between two people who intended to be together for longer than a night and she suspected Lauren did too - but Char kissed her on the cheek and sashayed off. “Text me when you’re home,” she called over her shoulder.

“She seems nice,” Bran said, mildly.

Felt moved to defend Char by what she thought was unspoken criticism, Mercy frowned at him. “She’s my best friend.”

“I really did mean she seems nice.” Bran’s hazel eyes, framed by their darker eyelashes, looked very green under the bright kitchen lights. He had a freckle on his left cheek, high up on his cheekbone. Had she ever seen that before?

Mercy finished off her drink. Maybe more alcohol would help her deal with… whatever this was. She picked up a glass bottle on the counter with a name she didn’t recognize, sniffed it, and poured herself a double shot of vodka, ignoring his look. People drank at parties at college, she told herself. This was normal. She added in a generous measure of the diet lemonade. “What are you doing here?” she asked, helplessly.

“I don’t know. I was given this drink,” Bran said, looking into it. “It’s not particularly pleasant.”

She sighed. Apparently some things never changed – Bran was still as cryptic as ever. The couple behind her started to slurp upsettingly. “Shall we go outside? Might be a little quieter.”

Bran nodded. She followed him as he made his way unerringly through the crowd of people. One of Bran’s fingers touched her hand and she tilted it, reflexively. He took hold of her, linking their fingers together, and pulling her along at his side. Her stomach flip-flopped, her cheeks felt hot. _Weird_ , she thought. _Really weird._

Outside was cooler. There weren’t the only couple to have escaped the noise and press of people and spilled out into the front drive. They weaved around them to find a quiet spot against a tree, boxed in by a battered two-door Geo Tracker and a Ford Fiesta.

She had expected him to say something. Instead, he leaned against the tree and tilted his head back to look at the stars. If he had been someone else, some other guy in his early twenties, she would have thought he might be posing.

She took a sip of her drink, winced because it was truly revolting, then took another.

“You know me, don’t you,” he said, tilting his head to the side to look at her.

Was this a game? She sipped her drink. “Yes, Bran. I know you,” she said, humoring him.

“The girl, Char, called you Mercy.”

She rolled her eyes. “Bran, if this is some kind of test, it’s pretty oblique even for you.”

“It’s not a test. At least, not for you, I don’t think. You’re very pretty,” he added, with a bit of a smile. He touched the frayed edge of her short denim skirt and the tip of his finger touched her thigh.

“Thanks,” she said, reflexively, looking down at where his finger had touched her skin. This was not normal Bran behavior. Bran didn’t touch her. _Bran_ didn’t call her pretty. “Bran, do you really not know who you are? Who I am?”

“You smell familiar. It’s why I came into the party.” He leaned towards her slightly and scented her. “You’re not human, are you?”

Mercy glanced around. No one was paying them particular attention but you never could tell. “I think you should keep your voice down,” she said. “Tell me what you remember.”

“Not a great deal,” he said, with a remarkable degree of calm. “I was down the street. I came here because I scented someone familiar. Someone handed me this beverage. Then there was you. It felt like I knew you, though I couldn’t remember why or how. Mercy is your name.”

“It is.” Mercy had drunk a fair bit that evening but even with the alcohol dampening her usual reactions, she was beginning to feel the stirrings of panic. “Okay. So, I think we should go and call someone. Maybe Charles or—“

She ceased talking because Bran pushed off the tree with a small shoulder movement and stood in front of her, boxing her in with his arms against the fence. He lowered his head and scented her neck, this time more deeply. Mercy stayed very, very still.

When Bran pulled back, she found herself looking at his mouth and told herself it was because only an insane person would look the Marrok in the eye when he might possibly have just lost his mind. “You smell good to me,” he told her.

“That’s great,” she said faintly, looking at the curve of his fuller lower lip. She felt a tremble in her knees and was uncomfortably aware that it wasn’t because of a nice sensible reaction, like fear, but something else. Mercy did not have a great deal of experience with boys. She’d had precisely one boyfriend for six months during freshman year and then one, regretful one-night-stand when she couldn’t go home for Thanksgiving and was miserable and lonely. But, still, she knew what this felt like.

She glanced up at Bran’s eyes and quickly back down again. Bran Cornick, Marrok of the wolves of North America, with his sun-kissed sandy hair, was watching her like she was a snack.

“We should call Charles,” she whispered, a prickling sense of awareness spreading through her body. Had she ever been this close to him before? He gave off waves of heat, like all werewolves did. His T-shirt was tight across his shoulders, pulled on the muscles she knew were underneath. Remove the Bran-ness of him and he totally looked like someone she would date, she realized, horrified at herself. Was she _attracted_ to Bran?

“Who’s Charles?” He lowered his head again, not so far, and she froze as she felt the merest brush of his lips against the corner of her mouth.

“He’s—he’s someone who could probably help with this. What are you doing?” This last was a squeak.

“You smell good. I want to kiss you.”

She was grateful she was leaning against something because her knees basically turned to jello. “You shouldn’t do that. You’re—“

He pressed his mouth against hers and for a moment that was all it was – just a soft contact, her lips against his, but it was enough to stop the breath in her body, erase all the sensible thoughts about Charles and Bran’s seriously homicidal mate and _what the heck was going on_. Then his hands came up to cup her face and he kissed her properly, no innocent gentle press of lips any longer, but a demand instead, coaxing her mouth open beneath his, licking his way in, pushing her back against the fence with the force of his kiss.

She had never been kissed like it and she found herself instinctively trying to match him, meeting his tongue with hers, pressing up against him, her arms going around his neck. His fingers slide up to the back of her scalp, digging in to delicious pressure points she hadn’t known existed. Instead of staying put, his lips caressed the corner of her mouth, her chin. He tilted her head to the side and ran them down her neck. She gasped as she felt the edge of his teeth and this time her knees gave way as her insides liquefied, as heat spread through her like fire and he held her up against him, effortlessly.

This was what being kissed by Bran Cornick felt like, she thought. It was overwhelming.

Bran came back to her mouth, switching angles. Distantly, she could hear the noises they were making, like the couple in the kitchen – loud and wet and maybe she would be embarrassed but right now she just wanted more. For long, long minutes she forgot where they were, who they were, just the dance of their mouths against each other, the heat of his body pressed against hers.

Bran pulled back, resting his forehead against hers. His eyes were shadowed; she couldn’t read them. His fingers had slipped under the vest top she was wearing, just gently stroking her lower back. “I’ve never done that before have I?” he said.

She shook her head.

His eyes were almost all pupil, now. “I think I wanted to.”

Mercy licked her lips. She had to get control of this situation. This wasn’t right. “We need to call Charles,” she said, unwinding her arms from around him, her movements sluggish.

She saw the wolf flicker across his eyes. “I’m not enjoying how often you mention this person.”

“I promise you it’s for your own good,” she said, grabbing his hand. “Come on.”

*

She found a pay phone because Charles had always expressed to her that she was never to use her cell to call home. Or what was once her home, she thought, casting Bran a disgruntled look. He crowded her, telegraphing desire for her in a way that was seriously causing her brain to melt. She misdialed twice and then, when the phone finally rung, she immediately hung up in case it was Leah who answered.

“Shoot,” she said. She had pretty much hoped to never speak to, let alone see, Leah Cornick again. And now she’d just made out with her husband. Her mate, which in werewolf terms, was way worse. She didn’t know much about how a mating bond worked – no one had ever seen fit to explain it to her, a mere coyote – but she wouldn’t be surprised if Leah already knew.

Bran nuzzled her neck. “You’re panicking,” he said, his voice all rumbly which did funny things to her insides.

“Stop that,” she said, unconvincingly. She dialed again. She would just have to do it. It was the right thing to do.

The phone rung. A man picked up. “Charles,” she sighed in relief, “thank goodness.”

“Mercy? We’re in the middle of a situation here—“

“Is it because of Bran? Who has forgotten who he is? Who is here, right here, with me?” she said quickly, lest Charles hung up. Unlike Sam, who had been her friend, the guy she had been, maybe still was, in love with, Charles had always found her annoying, though she had to give him credit for always being conveniently around when Leah tried to do her worst.

“He’s with you?” Charles sighed and it was a sigh world-weary with relief. “Well. That’s something at least. Is he okay?”

 _He_ currently his hand up her top, making his way to one of the inevitable preferred destinations for a wandering male hand. She halted its progress with her own hand and gave him a stern look. His smile was unrepentant and painfully sweet. “He doesn’t remember who he is, Charles.”

“He’s not… dangerous?”

Mercy knew what Charles was asking. “He seems, um.” She didn’t know who was listening at the other end and telling Bran’s son that his father was a fantastic kisser really didn’t seem like a good conversational topic. “He’s reasonably relaxed,” was what she went with. “I haven’t seen anything to be concerned about. Will you come and get him?’

“Could you look after him for us? Just whilst we handle something here. He should go back to himself soon but it is reassuring to know he’s with someone we can trust. I’ll check in in a few hours.” Then Charles hung up.

 _Trust_ , Mercy thought, staring at the phone before she hung it up. Charles trusted her?

“Maybe I do like Charles,” Bran said, turning her in his arms and kissing her again.

Wanting to kiss someone, but knowing she _shouldn’t_ , wasn’t a new experience for Mercy. She just had never really expected to experience that with two werewolves from the same family.

Bran lowered his head and started kissing her neck again, dragging his lips across her skin. She shivered against him because a werewolf kissing her neck was both unbelievably amazing, like he had a direct line into her panties, and also fundamentally dangerous. She had showed her neck to this man, in submission, and now she was doing it because it felt— “Good?” he asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“So good,” she sighed, stupidly. It was almost shockingly intimate, shockingly sexy, as if he had kissed her nipple instead of just the join between her neck and shoulder.

He kissed around her neck to the other side. A fleeting thought that they were in a pay phone, in public, crossed her mind, and then his hand slid up her leg and under the practical cotton of her panties, cupping her butt, pulling her against him and rubbing. A delicious tremor went through her, prelude to the kind of orgasm she could expect to have with him. And that stopped her cold.

“Oh, damn,” she said. She could smell her own desire now but she could also smell his. _No. No. No._ “Bran, we have to stop. Let’s… just go back to my apartment.” And play board games, she thought. Maybe watch a movie. At different ends of the couch. Different rooms.

“Sounds good. Let’s go,” he said, pulling back from her neck with a wet pop. 

It was usually a twenty-minute walk to the student apartment that she shared with Char and Lauren. With Bran, this took closer to forty. If there was a gap in a hedge or a secluded looking corner, he’d coax her into it and she’d find herself being thoroughly kissed, making increasingly weak protests. At one point, she started to climb him like a tree and she sprung away from him, telling herself off out loud, much to his entertainment.

She stalked ahead of him the rest of the way, hands clenched at her sides. She _would_ survive this. She would do the right thing, even if it killed her.

Their apartment was on the second floor. Since the building was primarily student accommodation, it was still buzzing though it was coming up on midnight. She might normally have been embarrassed, walking through the halls with a guy no one knew, for a purpose everyone assumed, but she had far, far too much on her mind for that to bother her. She fumbled for her keys as Bran breathed down her neck, his hands on her waist, evidence of his need pushing against her.

Inside, he walked unerringly to her bedroom. “You’ve been here before,” she said suspiciously, kicking off her shoes and following him.

“No, I can smell this one is your room.” He pointed across the room. “That one is your friend Char from the party. That one is a girl who wears too much perfume. She was also at the party. The one with the unfortunate conquest?”

“Lauren,” she said. In her bedroom, he looked at the single bed and touched his fingers to his mouth. He turned to look at her.

Even in the darkness, she could see him clearly. The look he gave her was… something else. Desire and hunger, rolled into one. Werewolf, she reminded herself, with a tremor. _Predatory_.

She hurriedly flicked on the light, which helped, mostly because she saw that her room reflected her usual refined sense of order. “I’m going to change. Why don’t you go out there and find something for us to watch on the TV?”

Bran’s smile was knowing. “I’ll do that.” He gave her a definitively courtly bow and backed out of her bedroom, closing the door behind him.

Mercy stood for a moment and then she sprung into action, picking up clothes and tossing them into the wardrobe, flinging shoes after them. She fixed the comforter and straightened her pillows. Then she found her biggest, baggiest T-shirt- well, it had been Cory's - and her biggest, baggiest sweater and sweatpants and quickly changed. Better, she thought, looking into the mirror. A little warm for the time of the year but she felt reasonably covered up now. Unsexy. She pulled a wet wipe from the packet on her chest of drawers and scrubbed the make-up off her face. _Even better._

“So, can I get you something to drink? Maybe something to eat?” she asked, brightly, walking back into the communal area that connected the three bedrooms.

Bran looked up from where he was crouched in front of the TV, going through their movie selection. He smiled at her. “That would be great.”

Werewolves packed away calories and Bran more than most. She looked at her cupboard and then at the meagre pickings on her shelf in the refrigerator. Ham sandwich it was, she thought, making a mental note to replace the bread tomorrow. “What movie did you pick?” she asked.

She jumped when Bran answered immediately behind her. He moved like… well, a werewolf. “Did you change into this because you thought I’d find it less appealing?” he asked, his eyes laughing at her.

Mercy pushed the plate him and scowled, blushing. “We’ve got water or cranberry juice.”

“Juice, please,” he said, taking a bite of the sandwich. “Thank you.” 

She poured them both a glass and went to the couch. She sat in the corner, turning her body so that her feet were on the cushion between them.

“This man looks familiar,” Bran said, putting the plate down on the little coffee table and showing her the movie he had chosen.

“Will Smith. That’s a good movie,” Mercy said, thinking aliens and a buddy-movie would probably be a safe bet. She took it from him and went to set it up.

Ten minutes into the movie and she was feeling calmer. This was a good movie. Bran had finished his sandwich and had put his feet up onto the coffee table, hands folded on his stomach. He looked relaxed. Mercy was trying to be the same. Sure, she’d had the Marrok’s tongue in her mouth, but that was a thing of the past. She was doing this, she was totally achieving zen.

“So, who am I to you?” Bran asked, making her eyes widen. “Not a mate. Not a boyfriend.”

Mercy stared fixedly at the screen. “No, not a boyfriend. You’re… sort of responsible for me. Or were.” Before he _sent her away._

He tapped his fingers against his stomach. “The beast inside me says you’re mine.”

She glanced at him. “He does? Wait – does he know what happened to you?”

“It happened to him as well. I’m,” Bran tilted his head to the side, half closing his eyes, “keeping him in check. It seems like the right thing to do.”

She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “That’s a really good thing.”

Bran put his hand around her ankle and rubbed, comforting her. He then stood abruptly, gave her a good yank so she was flat on her back on the couch, and crawled over her, so fast, she barely had time to protest. “ _No_ ,” she said, pushing her hands against his chest as he loomed above her, his hands either side of her head.

“No?” he asked, interested. He rested himself on her lightly, keeping most of his weight on his arms.

She kept resolutely still, despite the sudden urge to rub herself against him like a cat. “It’s not fair to you, Bran. You don’t know what you’re doing. You wouldn’t want to do this.”

“I can absolutely assure you I would. And I do. And _you do_.”

She blushed. “Please, Bran. You’re involved with someone. It’s not fair on them.”

This had the impact she expected. He looked absolutely shocked. “I am? How is that possible when I feel like this?”

She chewed her lip, feeling ashamed and embarrassed at the same time. “I’m really sorry. I should have said something before. I just.” She pulled her hands up between them and covered her face.

“Do I love her?”

Mercy kept her hands where they were. She never understood their relationship and wasn’t the only one. Sam had once dismissively told her that it was a ‘mating of convenience’ from both sides but Charles had told her more, prosaically, as if to burst any bubble she had about his father. Leah, Bran’s bond with Leah, was all that stopped him from going berserk. There was a monster inside of Bran, a monster that sometimes crept out a little when he was angry. The only thing that some kept him in control was Leah. Everything beyond that was irrelevant. 

She sighed, and pulled her hands away, determined to face this head on. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” she pointed out. The real Bran would know this, she was sure. Never mind the chemistry he might have with someone else. Maybe even with her, as this evening had shown. _Which blew her mind._

Bran didn’t say anything. He also didn’t move, just seemed to be studying her face, as if memorizing her. He touched his fingers to her cheek. “Loyalty is important,” he said, sounding as if he was testing the words out loud for their truth. 

Mercy nodded, swallowing down what she was terribly afraid was a feeling of disappointment. This was the right thing to do. She would be glad of that, later. Once this was over.

“It is,” she said, firmly.

But Bran surprised her, shocked her, in fact, by lowering his head and pressing his mouth to hers again, gently. It was a closed mouth, gentle kiss. Impossibly romantic, she thought, almost sighing. He did it again, a little longer.

“Bran,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to stop,” he said, shaking his head, touching his lips to the corners of her mouth, a little press, another. “This feels like this is something I have wanted my whole life. Please don’t make me.”

That was patently ridiculous, she thought, trying desperately to be practical as part of her _ached_ at his words. She angled her head to the side so he could go to town on her neck, logic dissolving as hormones pumped through her body. She writhed underneath him. He bit her, just a little, and she made a helpless noise that she just knew she would be embarrassed about later. “This is such a bad idea,” she said and it sounded like a whimper.

“You’re used to me making the decisions, aren’t you,” he said against her skin, running the stiff point of his tongue downwards.

Mercy nodded, pushed a hand into his hair. “It’s super weird knowing better than you,” she admitted.

He laughed and scraped his teeth up her neck. She moaned and her legs, which had been firmly pressed together, _thankyouverymuch_ , relaxed. He eased himself between them so he was sliding against her, so she could feel _him_. It. Bran’s cock, her mind provided her, helpfully. Because he had one. He’d always had one. And now it was there, between her legs, and she wanted –

“No sex!” she said, hurriedly, pushing at him. “Promise.”

“Define sex,” he said thickly, meeting her eyes. She had seen werewolves with eyes like that before. Just before the change. Hungry for the hunt.

She swallowed. “ _That_ is not going inside me.”

Bran rolled his hips against her and she clenched her teeth so she wouldn’t make a noise. “I agree to these terms,” he said easily, nipping at her mouth.

Of course, she knew better than that. When she’d been dating Cory, they’d done plenty before they had finally had sex. It always started out like this, clothes on, making out on the couch. Increasingly frantically. Admittedly, Cory hadn’t quite the skillset that apparently Bran had because Cory hadn’t had the centuries of practice but, still, this was an area Mercy was familiar with. It had been nearly a month of this before she’d taken that last step with Cory and she was confident even Bran wouldn’t be able to persuade her.

But Bran _was_ cunning. Bran waited for her to take her sweater off – because she was overheating and because she knew she had a nice, equally slovenly T-shirt on underneath. He politely asked if maybe she wouldn’t mind if he took his T-shirt off? She didn’t mind, she very much didn’t mind. He rolled them over so she could sit across him and explore the scars on his chest with her fingers. He didn’t know where he had got them from but it must have been after he had been Changed. There weren’t many things a werewolf could scar from. Her eyes drifted from the scars, to the ridges of his muscles. She traced the sharp cuts on either side of his torso that disappeared under his jeans. He twitched.

“Maybe we could go into your room?” Bran asked, gently, stroking a hand over her hair.

Mercy didn’t think either of her housemates would be back any time soon, but you never knew. She’d caught Char on the couch plenty of times and had been mortified. She wouldn’t want to do that to anyone else.

“Same rules still stand,” she said, climbing off of him.

“Absolutely.”

He thought he was so smart, she thought, crawling onto the bed, him close behind. He flipped her over, like she weighed nothing. He laughed at her expression and kissed her, little sips, like she was an expensive wine. His hand cupped her breast through her T-shirt, thumb stroking over her hard nipple, pushing against the lace of her bra. He used a little bit of his nail and she pushed her heels into the mattress. “You like that?” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Can I take your bra off?”

She pressed her lips together. “T-shirt stays on.”

The corners of Bran’s eyes crinkled with his smile. “Okay.” He slid his hands underneath her and together they pulled her bra off, sliding it through the sleeve. Then he ducked his head, rubbed his cheek against her breast through the cloth and then sucked her nipple into his mouth, hard.

She yelped, more from surprise than anything else, and scrambled against him as he did it again, unable to comprehend whether he had crossed the line over pleasure into pain or vice versa. He pulled off of her and did the same thing to her other breast. This time, she was able to parse it, and she grabbed handfuls of his hair and held him to her. Pleasure, definitely _pleasure, pleasure, pleasure_.

Bran pulled back and blew on the wet spots of her T-shirt. She shivered. He rolled his hips between her legs, where she was throbbing in a tempo with her heartbeat. He adjusted her slightly and did it again. _Bingo_ , she thought, closing her eyes. “Right there,” she said.

“Hmm,” he agreed, moving with tiny little thrusts, right where she wanted it. “Could you come like this?”

She was too far gone now to really appreciate Bran Cornick asking her if she could come, which was an astonishing concept. “I’m not sure. I’ve never before.” Cory would always have to use his fingers, or she did. As if he was following her thoughts – which, he had assured them all time, and time again, he couldn’t do – Bran pressed his hand between her legs and ground his palm against her. “F—udge,” she gasped.

“What about this?”

“Uh, yeah, maybe.” He removed his hand entirely. “Hey!” she cried out.

He kissed her lips, politely. “I want to put my mouth on you. May I take these off?” he asked, fingers in the elastic trim of her sweatpants.

Aware that this was a line she was being asked to cross, Mercy rose up on her elbows and blew out a breath. “This is not a good idea,” she repeated.

“I would like to make you come,” he said, perfectly innocently, as if this was something boys said to her all the time.

She flopped back on the bed and covered her eyes with her arm. She could feel dreadful about this morning, she decided. “Sure. Okay. Go right ahead.”

He chuckled and pulled her pants and underwear off in one go. Like the panty magician or something. She heard them hit the floor, then he cupped his hand over her pubis, stroking his thumb over the little strip of hair.

She could all but feel his quizzical look. “It’s fashionable,” she said, blushing and pulling her arm from her face to look at him. Yes, quizzical.

“Painful?” he guessed, trailing his fingers over her softly.

  
“Actual agony.”

“Hmm.” He slid down her body and her blush became red hot. This wasn’t an area she had a great deal of experience in. Cory had gone down on her and it had been kind of embarrassing for both of them. But Bran, she knew, also had excellent night vision and smell. She’d showered before they’d come out, of course, but still…

She bit her lip and stared up at the ceiling, suddenly mortified.

When he licked her, though, she clapped a hand over her mouth. Then he used his thumbs to part her and licked her again. This time she made a helpless noise, legs kicking instinctively.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Bran said, arranging her so her knees were draped over his shoulders, her feet dangling against his back. “Try to relax.”

Later, Mercy would think about the sounds she made, about the sensation of his tongue on her clitoris, his little licks and then purposeful sucks, his fingers inside of her, curling upwards. She would wonder how on earth it was possible for him to know her body better than she did, that he – or indeed anyone – could make her come so hard she saw stars.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, when she had come down from what was undoubtedly the best orgasm of her life so far. She unclenched her hands from his hair.

Bran rearranged her, nicely, and then lay on his side next to her. “Would it be okay if I took my jeans off?” he asked, looking a little pained.

She laughed, feeling unbelievably relaxed. Any man who made her come that hard could do what he wanted. Within reason. “Yes, of course. I’m sorry.”

He stood to shuck them off. She could see the outline of him through his shorts. “Are those… Captain America shields?”

Bran looked down at himself and the corner of his mouth quirked. “Apparently. I am whimsical, aren’t I?”

She giggled. “That’s one word for it.”

He bounced back onto the bed next to her, lying on his side and stroking her stomach. She rolled to face him as well, mirroring him, and kissed him. Their tongues tangled for a while. She could taste herself, which was weird, but she got over it.

He ran his hand up and down her side, sliding her T-shirt up to just below her breasts, then back down over her hip. She did the same, then dared to trace her fingers over his pants, to where he was tenting the fabric. His mouth paused on hers, minutely, then he pushed more firmly against her so she lay on her back once more.

“In the interest of reciprocity—,” she began.

He shook his head, kissed her nose. “I think that breaks the aforementioned rules.”

“Well, I didn’t mean _that_.”

“I know. But I am obeying the spirit if not the letter.”

She gaped at him, a little. “You are actually saying no to a blow job,” she said, bluntly.

“I cannot describe to you how much I enjoyed you saying that,” Bran laughed, climbing on top of her again. She spread her legs easily and he ‘hmm’ed as he lay between them, resting his face on his propped up hands, gazing at her wonderingly.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Werewolves have tried to manipulate me all my life,” she said to him, suspiciously. “Which is what I think you’re doing now.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing her chin. “Even though I currently feel no personal responsibility.”

“You were the main culprit.”

“I’m sure I was. You don’t seem very obedient. Maybe the only way to get what I wanted _was_ to manipulate you.”

That was pretty much the long and the short of it. She gave him better access to her neck and he wrapped them close, folding her legs around his hips, rubbing himself against her, working himself into her slipperiness. It felt good. More than good. Even the fabric of his shorts, dragging against her sensitive clitoris, was sending spikes of heat through her body. He started to move more purposefully and his mouth sought hers, open and hot. She could taste herself, still. She had a blinding, hot flash of imagining what it was like if he was inside of her and wanted it so badly she felt herself clench reflexively around nothing.

“Mercy,” he whispered, panting ever-so-slightly.

She met his eyes, prepared to be asked, prepared to say yes. Instead, she jolted at the awareness in his eyes, the wide-eyed stare of wonder. It transformed his face. “Bran? Is that you?” she asked.

His eyes flashed amber-gold once and then back to his normal hazel as he nodded. “It’s me. I’m here.” Bran moved his hips, slightly, getting a somehow better angle and she gasped. “Mercy, tell me that you wanted this.”

“This is okay, this is okay,” she said, gasping. “Is it okay?”

Bran, the real Bran, kissed her. It was nothing short of savage. He was making noises, a low growl. He pulled back, holding her face. “Will you let me inside you.” It was a question but not. She was already nodding, flushing hot at his words, and he barely parted from her to push his shorts down. She reached for her T-shirt and pulled it off, then they were finally skin to skin. “Are you sure?” he said, grabbing a handful of her hair so she would meet his eyes. “Swear to me you’re sure, Mercy.”

“I’m sure, but are you?” Mercy asked, sliding her hand between them, finding him, dragging the head between her thighs to where she was slippery-hot, teasing herself.

He kissed her in answer, his hand met hers and together they guided him inside of her. It was exactly how she imagined and also nothing like it. Her mouth opened against his and he drank down her gasps as he slid all the way inside in one slow thrust, stretching her almost-painfully. 

Bran adjusted her hips, tilting her so that when he next thrust again, a shiver of new sensation coursed through her. She met his gaze again, and his eyes were hazy with his pleasure. She started to meet each thrust of his hips with one of her own, eager for him to be even deeper. He reached down to grip her thigh. Their rhythm changed, became sinuous, undulating, as he ground against her clit and moved inside her, deeper still.

“It’s really you,” she said, wrapping her arms around him, kissing him, wholly relieved.

He licked her mouth, caught her bottom lip with his teeth. “Mercedes Athena Thompson,” he said, nosing his way down to her neck. She could feel his breath, short pants that stuttered with every thrust. He nipped her. “Can I come inside you? Is it safe?”

She clenched around him, wanting him on this most basic of levels. “It’s safe.”

He increased his pace, then, and she met him stroke for stroke, holding his head against her neck as he sucked and bit her, sending waves of secondary pleasure to meet the sparks of sensation he was causing below. She felt the familiar build of her orgasm, that hot, pulsing edge rising and pulled back so she could look at him. Only an inch or two apart, they focused on each other, on all the flickers of pleasure that crossed their faces. Bran’s thrusting became frantic and she could see he was near-mindless now, seeking that final release. “Are you close?” he asked.

She nodded and as she did so, her climax hit her like a freight train, the first powerful wave clenching down on him so hard she yelled because it _hurt_. Wave after wave of euphoria washed over her as his thrusts grew erratic and finally he froze, said her name on a loud exhale as he came. She rose to meet his mouth and he gasped into her, giving her a few shorter, sharper plunges before he went completely limp above her, shuddering.

“Jesus Christ,” he said, lowering his face to her shoulder.

Despite herself, despite what they had just done, Mercy was shocked. “ _Bran_ , you never swear.”

He chuckled, the vibrations sending interesting pulses through where they were joined. “A day of many firsts,” he said, eventually, lowering himself down so they lay together like two parts of a whole, still inside of her. Mercy dropped her legs from around him, feeling the burn of a stretch long-held, and ran her hands down his back.

So that was sex with the Marrok of the Werewolves, Mercy thought, as fine tremors shook her body. She figured she was pretty much ruined for all other men now.

*

They made love – for that was what it felt like – twice more before dawn. Then Bran held her face, kissed her, stroked his hands through her hair and said, “You know this never should have happened.”

She nodded, already feeling the impending sadness from an inevitable conversation she had tried to ignore. “I’m sorry. I could have tried harder.”

He laughed, kissed her again, eyes bright. “Mercy, nothing would have stopped me.”

“It wasn’t _you_.”

“It was me, it was always me, just not me with all my memories. I remember every,” he kissed her,” single,” another, “moment.”

They lost the thread of conversation as their kissing become more involved until she was spread on top of him and he was laving at her breasts with his tongue. Suddenly, he dropped back onto the bed and held his hands over his eyes. “You are absolutely—“ She didn’t find out what she was because he grabbed her and swivelled so he was sitting and she was sideways across his lap. Bran stared at the wall opposite. “Leah cannot find out about this. And you know I cannot leave her and why.”

Mercy nodded, glad he couldn’t see the pain she was sure was in her eyes. And also, “I’m sorry.”

He stroked a hand down her back. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

There was nothing Mercy could say to that. Her personal feelings about Leah put to one side – she had hated Leah and Leah had hated her – she didn’t take any pleasure in being complicit to Bran breaking his promise of fidelity to his mate.

Bran sighed. “I will remember this on my deathbed, but I need you not to.”

“What?” she said, not understanding.

“I can make you forget.”

She stared at his profile, memorising the fine, straight nose. The way his bottom lip was fuller than the top. He angles of his cheekbones. He had always been nice looking, pleasant. He was now one of the most handsome men she had ever seen. “You can make me forget,” she repeated, stupidly.

Bran picked up her hand, kissed it and then held it to his face. He looked at her, eyes beseeching, and she would bet every dollar she would make in her lifetime that he had never looked at someone like this before. “Please, Mercy, will you let me make you forget?”

She squirmed until he let her go. Crossed her arms over her naked chest and walked away from him, towards the window. Outside, a dull and grey day was unfolding. “I—don’t want to forget.”

“I know,” he said, sadly.

“It’s not fair, Bran. It’s,” she swallowed down her next words. It was his fault. His marriage. His problem. But it wasn’t. That was the point. They had done this. She had done this. She could have said no at any time. What had she thought was going to happen?

She pressed her heated forehead against the cool glass. The answer to that was simple - she hadn't thought. She had very deliberately _not_. She was so dumb.

She kept still when he approached behind her, slotting himself against her back, curling his head over her shoulder.

His breath tickled her neck. “You are so important to me, Mercy.”

“You _sent me away_.”

“I promise you, it was only to protect you.” Bran kissed the side of her head - once, twice, three times. “It was the only way I could keep you safe. She already had her suspicions.”

Mercy spun to look at him. “Then? You mean, it wasn’t just Sam?”

He shook his head, brushing the hair down the sides of her face. “Not just Sam. I was already cruel to you. By necessity, I would have only had to have become crueler. But one look at your face now and she will know. Everyone will know.”

“I don’t have to see them ever again,” she insisted, placing her palms flat against his naked chest. She couldn’t believe what he was proposing but she could fully believe he was capable. There had long been rumors about Bran’s powers going beyond that of a werewolf. Talk of his witchborn blood.

“You will. Our lives are tied together. I cannot risk it. Never mind what happens between me and her, if she finds out, it will become her mission to kill you.”

“Not much different from normal, then,” Mercy sniffed resentfully.

Bran took her face in his hands and made her look at him. “Except that I would have to kill her to stop her. And I don’t believe I would be able to. He would not allow it. Never mind that you are as much his as she is. She is tied to me, you are not.” He kissed her forehead. “Please, Mercy. I am begging you.”

“I don’t want to forget this,” she said again, plaintively, feeling tears prickling. She pressed her face into his collarbone and his arms came around her. “It was—“ Never mind the sex, the pleasure of it. Being with him had felt like home. She had never felt that before. A tear fell, trailed down his skin, followed by another.

“I don’t want you to, either. Selfishly, I want you to think of me every day, every time you are with another man,” he said, letting a little growl into his voice. “But you should have your own future. Fall in love with someone who deserves you.”

She could love him, she thought. She already loved him but she could love him like a woman loved a man. She saw that, now. She could love him, she realized mournfuly, and she would be forever alone.

Bran let her think, cradled against his chest. She listened, was soothed, by the sound of his heartbeat. She already knew her answer; knew the moment he had begged her for it. “You’ll remember, though,” she said, quietly.

“I’ll remember.”

She looked towards the bed, and then up at him. “Can we, one last time?” Now that she knew it was going to be the last time, she foolishly felt she wanted to memorize it, live it, once again.

He nodded and she tugged him back to the bed, where the sheets and comforter were scrunched at the base of the bed, the pillows on the floor. She pushed him down and back and then, feeling bold, straddled his legs and started kissing her way down his body.

“Mercy—“ he said, touching her hair, sounding pained.

“No, I want to do this. And I want you to watch and I want you to remember me doing it _forever_ ,” she said, baring her teeth at him.

Bran leaned back on his arms, obediently, and she watched him watch her, his eyes dark and heavy with desire. “I can do that. I promise you I can do that.”


	2. 10+ Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, you know where this is going.

Adam made a bee-line for her and kissed her. “Hello,” he said, warmly.

“Hello, husband mine,” Mercy greeted him, running her hands over the lapels of his suit jacket, one she had picked out for him. Funny how her interest in clothes only extended to what would suit him. “I am extremely pleased to see you and if it wasn’t for all these people I would climb you like a tree to demonstrate.”

Said people, their pack, whooped and were they not all involved in making sure Mercy didn’t ruin Adam’s welcome home dinner with her well intentioned attempts at cooking, they would have cleared the kitchen, fast.

“Why don’t you come and help me unpack?” Adam suggested, his eyes moving from ‘warm’ to ‘hot’.

“You have twenty-minutes,” Hannah told them, sternly, shaking a sauce-covered wooden spoon at them.

“That will be plenty of time to unpack his suitcase, which is very large, because he has been away from me for such a long time,” Mercy said, fooling no one and letting Adam drag her by the hand to their bedroom. She laughed as he laid her down on their bed, their bed that had been too big and too lonely without him in it. She sighed against his mouth, sighed under his hands.

“I missed you,” he said, when he was finally inside her.

“I missed you more.” She bit his bottom lip and let herself go.

*

They still had a couple of minutes for Mercy to lounge on the bed and drink him in as he unpacked, tossing clothes with relentless efficiency towards the clothes hamper. Nothing, her nose told her, smelt of blood, which confirmed what he had told her on the phone. Minor skirmishes only.

“Pretty good for a Bran Special,” Mercy commented, absently, watching her mate’s muscles play as he nailed the hamper every time without looking.

Adam glanced up at her, an equally appreciative look in his eye. “If you don’t put clothes on, we’ll miss dinner.”

It sounded tempting but then she heard his stomach rumble. She didn’t quite have the werewolf female instincts to feed her mate but it was pretty close. She got up and picked up her T-shirt and jeans. She smelt like sex, they both did, but within the pack she wasn’t so bothered by that any more.

Adam caught her before they left their room to re-join the others, kissed her thoroughly. “An hour,” he promised. Then he bounded from the room, buoyed by sex and happy with the knowledge that he’d revved his mate up again, enough for her to sit thrumming throughout dinner.

She grinned and followed him.

*

Mercy was the one who did their laundry the next day, as four weeks away meant his work had piled up in his absence and he’d headed to the office early. She emptied the hamper and carried everything down to the laundry to sort the lights from darks, humming happily. Her mate was home, she’d had very little sleep but in the best possible way, and all was right with the world.

One of what she had thought were Adam’s T-shirts caught her eye – a familiar, oversized T-shirt with a faded band logo on it. “Weird,” she said, shaking it out and putting it to her nose. It certainly smelt like Adam.

She hadn’t seen this particular T-shirt in years. It had been her first boyfriend’s – Cory, his name had been. It had disappeared sometime her sophomore year, though she had searched everywhere for it. She looked at the label and, sure enough, it was torn in exactly the same way hers had been.

How did Adam have it? she wondered, shoving it in with a load of laundry.

She forgot about it until the next day when Adam brought the clean and folded clothes back up to their bedroom, where she was getting ready for bed. “Hey, thanks,” she said, starting to put things away. She saw the T-shirt again and pounced on it. “This! Where did this come from?”

She held it against herself.

“Oh. Bran, I think,” Adam said, his mouth quirking. “I had to borrow something and must have packed it by mistake. Why?”

“It’s _mine_ ,” she said. Now this made even less sense, she thought.

“Okay.” Adam clearly didn’t get why it was important. He stripped off his shirt, thoroughly distracting her. And smiled.

“Have I mentioned how good it is to have you home?” she said, as her toes curled into the fluffy rug at the base of their bed.

He prowled towards her. “Not enough, I don’t think,” he said, with a growl in his voice.

Mercy dropped the T-shirt and pounced. “How remiss of me,” she said against his mouth.

*

Life continued. Romance blossomed. Jesse came home from school with a new boyfriend whom every single male in the pack instantly loathed – impressive – and Aiden might have, just maybe, started dating a girl in his class but none of them were allowed to ask questions or acknowledge anything about this. He was pretty freaked out, worried that he’d do something fae in front of her, something that told her clearly he was Not A Real Boy.

“You’ve been having a lot of dreams,” Adam said, as he drove her to work one morning. He’d picked her up the night before, as she’d been working late. Sometimes she let him be overprotective, particularly when she’d had a long day and the thought of snoozing in the passenger seat whilst he drove her home was so appealing.

“How can you tell?”

“I can feel it, mixed up with my own. And you’re restless.”

Mercy looked out of the window. She _had_ been dreaming – weird, nebulous things, including Bran in a superman T-shirt – and she had been trying to work out what it meant. Not that dreams necessarily always meant something. “It’s more or less the same thing.”

“Bran.”

“Is that what you felt?”

“He has a very distinct presence,” Adam said, a little darkly.

She gave him a moment. He was a little funny about Bran. Or had been, since Elizaveta’s curse. It didn’t mean anything; she was jealous of other women too. “I think it has to do with the T-shirt. Something weird there.”

“Did he visit you at college?” Adam suggested.

Mercy snorted. “The first time I saw Bran after he sent to me to my mom was when I brought you to Aspen Creek.” She remembered him, leaning back on his chair in the motel room. What had she told him? _People don’t do that. Not unless they’re teenage boys showing off for their girlfriends_.

“Well, I don’t know then. Maybe Sam borrowed it from you and it ended up there.”

“Maybe,” she said, unconvinced. Borrowing clothes was something mates did. Sam wouldn’t have done that, though he hadn’t exactly been behaving by the book back then.

“Guess you could call Bran and ask,” Adam said carefully.

Mercy didn’t think it was worth a phone call, certainly not when she knew it would distress Adam, even if it was just a little bit. She shook her head. “It’s fine. It’s just one of those things.” He pulled up in front of her garage and she leaned over to kiss him. “Thanks for the ride. I’ll see you tonight.”

*

Despite her attempts to bribe Tad to do her paperwork, Mercy spent much of the morning at her desk instead of under a car. Consequently, she was pretty grumpy so when Tad offered to go to the _good_ Mexican place for lunch, which was further away and more expensive, she jumped at it. Food always made things better. Her phone rang as she was giving him detailed instructions for her order and he waved her off. “I got it, I got it. See you in a few.”

She picked up the phone, realised it wasn’t _that_ phone, and rummaged in her bag for her cell. It was Char. “Hey!” she said, surprised. They talked about once a month and usually at Mercy’s instigation. Char had a couple of kids under five now and her life was apparently no longer her own. “What’s up?”

“Guess who I just saw pop up on Facebook.”

Mercy had set up a Facebook page at college, like everyone else, but set it to private and pretty much hadn’t touched it since. Last time she had checked, digging up the password from her memory like a time-capsule, she had over a thousand friend requests thanks to her now ‘celebrity’ status in the Tri-Cities. “I don’t know. Who?”

“Lauren, from sophomore year?”

“Oooh, yeah,” Mercy said. Lauren had dropped out after getting pregnant. She’d been seeing this guy on-and-off and had decided to keep the baby and gone back home. It had been a Big Drama. They’d tried to keep in touch but truthfully things had kind of fizzled out. Pregnancy and stories about keggers and student parties hadn’t particularly mixed. Then Amber had moved in with them, instead, and they’d formed a tight-knit trio. Thinking about Amber made Mercy sad. “How is she? Can you tell?”

“Married to Darius. Three kids. She’s some kind of financial controller for a company. They have a pool.”

“Hey, Darius? The guy who got her pregnant?”

“Same guy. Looks like they married,” Mercy could hear Char clicking around, “a couple of years after we finished college. Kid’s in the wedding photos. Just celebrated their ten-year wedding anniversary.”

“Wow. That’s great,” Mercy added, genuinely pleased for her friend. Lauren had been gone on Darius from the moment they had met but he had pretty much played the field, even more aggressively after Lauren had left. He’d hit on Mercy a couple of times, from what she remembered. She hoped he’d settled down.

Char sighed. “Yeah, good for her. Maybe I’ll get in touch with her. Would be nice to reconnect.”

Char also didn’t have that many friends with kids. Last time she’d gone to visit her in Mesa, taking Adam with her, it had been one of the topics she’d brought up. She’d heavily implied that it was time Mercy popped out a couple of babies, which had Adam snorting his beer. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t talked about it – they had – but they had pretty much put things on hold whilst things in their territory were so unsettled.

Of course, they’d been saying that for a couple of years. Maybe it was time to re-open that discussion.

The phone rang – the real one, this time – and Mercy said goodbye to Char, with promises to call her another time. She spent the rest of the afternoon daydreaming about babies, like a total sap, promising herself that she’d talk about it with Adam that weekend. It was more than ‘just’ the baby, of course. Werewolves were not known for their fertility and, despite Sam’s beliefs, no one actually knew for certain if Mercy could carry a werewolf baby full term. Most women mated to werewolves experienced a series of heartbreaks. She knew Chrissy had miscarried twice before Jesse. Was she ready for that?

She arrived home in a thoughtful state of mind, absently kissed Aiden’s forehead as she passed him in the kitchen, doing homework.

“What was that for?” he said, rubbing his forehead.

“Just saying hello,” she said. _Teenagers_. “I’m getting changed. Did you take out the beef?”

Aiden’s eyes flared with panic and he hunched his shoulders. She’d asked him that morning to remember to do so when he got home from school. “Ah, I forgot. I’m sorry.”

She snorted. “Pizza it is!”

She showered and changed and bounced back downstairs, just in time for Adam’s return. He was carrying four pizzas. “How did you know?”

“Aiden called. Apparently there’s a new teenager-approved pizza place now and it’s on my way home,” he said, kissing her.

Aiden was carefully taking pictures, artistically arranged on the table. They watched him flick through them on his cell, fiddle with something and then heard the distinct noise of a message being sent. He glanced at them, cheeks flushed. “I’ll be in my room,” he muttered.

“Nuh-uh,” Mercy said, getting plates. “We’re going to eat at the table like civilised people. You can make a salad, since you failed to defrost our real dinner.”

This was done begrudgingly and when Adam got back from changing into home clothes, they had a reasonably nice dinner just the three of them, a rare occasion. Adam, using his military interrogation skills, managed to get two whole words about Aiden’s maybe-girlfriend from him – ‘Claire’ and ‘pretty’ – before Aidan clammed up again. They exchanged glances of triumph.

*

That night, Mercy had a sex dream about Bran.

About Bran. With Bran. _Her-and-Bran_.

She woke up at four in the morning, her heart racing, Adam wide-awake next to her.

“What the heck was that,” she said.

“Something you want to tell me?” Adam asked, trying to sound like he was completely rational about her dreaming about another man. About this particular man.

Mercy got up to go splash water on her face. _Couldn’t it have been someone else?_ she thought, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Tony. Zee, even – also gross. _Stefan_ would have been better than Bran. It was like, well, kind of like dreaming about her father. Except Bran had never felt like her father, to her. Thank goodness.

She came back to bed, feeling embarrassed. “I don’t know where that came from.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Adam said, still totally chilled, wasn’t he totally chilled? See how totally chilled her mate was. 

Mercy pressed her hot face into the pillow and snuggled closer when Adam put his arm around her – still demonstrating his chill. Rational people didn’t get annoyed about their partners’ subconscious thoughts, of course. She tried to think if anything unusual had happened today that might have triggered such a strange dream. Just the phone call with Char but they hadn’t talked about Bran. Char didn’t even know who Bran was.

She closed her eyes. Adam’s hand wandered to squeeze her butt. “You wanna?” she said, smiling.

“Yeah, I wanna,” he answered with a little growl, flipping her over. 

Afterwards, she giggled, sleepily, as she lay sprawled across him, too drained to move. “Should dream about him more often,” she teased.

He slapped her butt. “Wash your mouth out.”

*

Mercy broached the baby question that weekend and Adam got a slightly crazy look in his eyes. “I know you wanted to wait until the pack was at full capacity,” she said. They were still, technically, recruiting. “But it might not take quickly, anyway. They could be like parallel… work-streams.”

They were in the basement. Adam had been meticulously sorting through all the games and DVDs that the pack took great delight in disordering because they knew it bugged him. He had frozen when she had started talking and was fixedly staring at her, one hand holding the case for a DVD of Toy Story II, of all things, the other holding the disk for what looked like a nature documentary.

Mercy felt out the mate bond, gingerly. “I cannot tell if this is good crazy or bad crazy,” she said, gesturing at him and his general visage of awestruck terror.

“Sort of both,” he said, roughly, clearing his throat. Adam put the wrong disk into the DVD case and closed it, shoving it onto the shelf. “I _really_ want to.”

She shifted on the balls of her feet. She _really_ wanted to, as well. “It might never be the right time,” she explained.

“Yes. I get that, too. Yes. Yes, let’s do this. If you want to?”

Mercy nodded, feeling something warm and good blossom inside of her, a smile on her face so big her cheeks hurt. “Yeah, I want to.” He started towards her, with intent, and she laughed. “I mean, I have to stop taking the pill, Adam. It’s not like we can start _right now_.”

“Let’s pretend,” he said, picking her up.

*

She had another sex dream and, thank goodness, this time it didn’t wake Adam up. Not surprising, Mercy thought, getting up to use the bathroom and wincing at her sore body. He had worked _hard_ at pretending. If it was going to be like this the entire time, she was going to go through painkillers at a dangerous rate.

Mercy went back to sleep and woke a couple of hours later and tried to fight Adam off, weakly. “Adam, I am broken,” she spluttered as he kissed his way down her body. “Okay,” she amended, sighing, grabbing handfuls of his hair. “Not that broken.”

Afterwards, she pulled the comforter over her head, intending to grab another hour of sleep. “I’ll be back late tonight,” he said before he left, leaning over her to muss her hair. She grunted and he kissed her cheek.

When it was a more sensible hour, she got up and showered and didn’t take the pill. Weird moment. As she brushed her teeth, she went about her usual routine of pulling out her clothes for the day, tossing them onto the bed. After a moment’s indecision, she padded over to Adam’s half of the wardrobe and flicked through his T-shirts. A mystifying few moments later of wondering where it had got to – was it related, somehow, to the walking stick? – she found Cory’s T-shirt, shoved right to the back, in a ball.

She went to rinse and came back, shaking the wrinkled T-shirt out. “Subtle, Adam,” she said, giving in to an idea that had half-formed in the night and pulling the T-shirt over her head. It hit her mid-thigh and was reassuringly still very baggy, not that she thought her body had changed much since her early twenties, but it was nice to know.

There was no mystic revelation. It still smelt faintly of Adam, overlaid with the laundry soap they used. She went to go look in the mirror.

*

She woke up on the floor, Warren standing over her, phone to his ear. His eyes were running all over her. “She’s here. She’s awake. She doesn’t _smell_ hurt.”

Mercy sat up on her elbows, feeling kind of fuzzy and a bit nauseous. Then, with a rush of toe-curling horror, she remembered _why_. “Oh my god.”

“She’s freaking out about something. No, I don’t know what. You should come home. Okay.” Warren hung up and crouched down. “Adam says he felt your panic. Then nothing. You wouldn’t answer your phone. Are you okay? He’s coming from work but I was nearby.”

Mercy couldn’t speak. She gazed at Warren, wordlessly, as her brain filtered an assault of memories. Of her. And Bran. Together. She shook her head. “Not okay. Not. Okay.” She felt the beginnings of a panic attack and worked on controlling her breathing.

“Mercy, can you tell me what happened? Did someone attack you? Was it magic? Are we being attacked?”

Magic, yes, she thought. She closed her eyes. _Bran_. “Not now. A long time ago. I need—“ She swallowed. What did she need? She needed to take this T-shirt off. “I have to get changed for work,” she said, pushing the panic down. “Can you call Adam and tell him I’m fine, that he shouldn’t come home. That I’ll speak to him this evening?”

Warren nodded, though he made it clear from expression alone that he was wondering why she didn’t want to do that herself. He helped her up and she tossed the T-shirt to one side, changing, whilst he called Adam – who was _not_ happy – and prowled the room as he did so, looking for monsters, not knowing the monster was a decade old and master of them all.

She went to wash her face again and when she came back, Warren was holding the T-shirt, swiftly folding it. “Can you put that… somewhere else?” she asked, wincing.

He gave her a weird look. “Okay. Is it… a bad T-shirt?”

“ _Very bad_ ,” she said, leaving the room.

*

When she got to work, when she was in a better head space, she called Adam. He was still _not_ happy but she had known that. “What the hell, Mercy?” he said.

“I’m sorry. I panicked and needed to process some things before I saw you, that’s all. I didn’t want to upset you when I was so all over the place. Everything’s—“ Not fine, she thought. She had woken up one person and then in the space of twenty minutes she had morphed into someone else. “I’m safe,” she said, eventually.

Adam was silent. She could feel him, vibrating with tension, down the bond. “Is it bad?” he asked, as if he already knew the answer. 

“It’s—I think it is,” she whispered, shame crawling up her face. She felt her eyes prickle and she reached around to close the door of her office. “It’s going to make you very unhappy.”

“Is it to do with us?”

“No, not directly. I think. I love you.” She scratched at mark on the desk with her thumbnail. “But maybe you won’t like me so much, after.”

 _This_ , this was what had her worried the most. Not _sex with Bran_ , which she had apparently experienced in full-Technicolor detail. Not that he had erased her memories, that he could, that he did, successfully enough for her not to remember something so monumental the thought of it made the tips of her fingers tingle.

But she had been party to Bran cheating on his mate. That was not the person she was. Thought she was. It was not the person Adam thought she was either.

“Mercy, that’s not possible,” he said, gently, down the phone.

“I really hope so,” she said. She glanced through the window at the garage proper, where a customer was patiently waiting. “I have to go.”

“Okay. I love you. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it,” he said, sighing.

She spent the day experiencing cycling waves of shame and self-hatred, coupled with flashbacks of memories that made her go hot all over. Of being with Bran, of kissing him, of touching him. _Of him being inside of her_. It was like it had happened yesterday, rather than more than ten years ago. She hid in the little rest room and cried where Tad couldn’t see her. It felt like she had cheated on Adam, even though she knew – she _knew_ \- she hadn’t.

“Can I drive you home?” Tad asked her, mid-afternoon, when he found her staring into space in the driver’s side of the station wagon she was supposed to be working on.

“What? No. I’m fine.”

“Sure. You might want to put a cold cloth on your eyes before you go, though.”

She scowled at him. It wasn’t as if she’d really believed he wouldn’t notice her frequent trips to the rest room but it would have been nice if he hadn’t mentioned it. “I’m fine,” she repeated, turning on the engine.

Almost as if the pack had sensed her mood, their usually active house was surprisingly empty when she got home. Aiden had his after school class that evening, so even he wasn’t in and knew he had plans with the not-girlfriend after. There were burger patties thawing in the refrigerator and so she put together the fixings for enough hamburgers to feed her hungry mate, tensing when she heard Adam’s truck draw up to the house.

She kept her eyes on the tomatoes she was slicing when he came in. She felt like she had done something wrong – because she had – and she didn’t want to look at him, face him. This was cowardly. “Hi,” Mercy said, forcing herself to look into his beautiful eyes.

Adam’s eyes were soft, concerned, but soft. Loving. Her heart clenched. “Hey,” he said, coming to give her a hug.

She squeezed him, tightly, at least glad for the time being she’d run out of tears. “I’m glad to see you,” she said, which was sort of true. 

He kissed her head, twice. “Me, too. How do you want to do this?”

“Maybe never?” she admitted.

He laughed, stroking her hair back from her face. “Can I go change? Then I’ll help with dinner.”

She nodded and he squeezed her again before going upstairs. She listened to the familiar, domestic sounds as he wandered around their room. She knew, like Warren, he would be prowling, scenting the space for whatever had triggered her panic that morning. She dropped some sliced onions into a pan on a low heat, gave them a stir, wondered if she was supposed to add oil. Did you add oil to non-stick pans? 

They cooked together, quietly. Adam got himself a beer because it was what men did when they came home from a hard day at work. She had a soda.

“It’s about Bran, isn’t it,” he said.

She nodded.

“Fuck,” he said, quietly, taking the burgers to the table.

Not remotely hungry, Mercy prepared her own burger, arranged some potato salad on the side. When it was done, when she couldn’t possibly put it off any more, she told him.

Adam said nothing as she took him through it. He clamped down hard on his emotions, letting nothing through the bond, and said absolutely nothing.

When she was done, when every last sordid detail had been revealed, he took a bite of his untouched burger, barely chewed it, swallowed and then held up a finger. “I will be right back,” he said, meeting her eyes with a promise in them. “Right back, Mercy.”

She nodded and watched as he left the table, walked out of their house and out of sight. She poked her potato salad with her fork. After a moment, she heard a noise – like a door slamming or something collapsing – and then Adam came back, shaking out his hand. He sat down and used his other hand to pick up his beer. “Okay,” he said, decisively.

Mercy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Okay?”

“Okay. It’s—it’s okay. I love you.” Oh yeah, there were the tears. “It was ten years ago. You were in college. You were just a kid.”

Tears were running down her face, unchecked. “I feel like I cheated on you. I feel—” she failed to say the word, at first, mouthed it before finally spitting it out, “— _disgusting_. I feel disgusting.”

“You haven’t and you aren’t,” Adam said staunchly. He took another gulp of his beer and picked up his burger with his other hand. His knuckles were smashed, bleeding. She pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry this has happened to you.”

“Stop being so nice,” she said, dissolving completely, the day’s pent up fears and worries tumbling over her. She covered her face with her hands, gulping in breath as she cried. “I don’t deserve it.”

His chair screeched back and he pulled her up, pulled her against him and held her close. “Mercy, my love, you do. I wish we’d spoken this morning, instead of you torturing yourself over this. We weren’t together, we didn’t even know each other. And, okay, any other man in the world would have been better,“ his arms clenched around her, “but then you probably feel the same way about Chrissy.” 

“She doesn’t have mind-altering mental powers,” Mercy said wetly into his neck. “At least. Not quite the same ones.”

Adam stroked her hair, kissed her head. “That’s certainly something interesting, isn’t it. I wonder how often he’s done it.”

“Terrifying, isn’t it?” she sniffed. She’d thought about _that_ , too. She looked up at him. “I’m not the person I thought I was.”

He smiled, stroking his thumbs down her face. “You’re exactly the person I thought you were. Are. People make mistakes. You were just a kid and it sounds as if you tried to do the right thing,” he murmured. He bent his head, slowly, telegraphing his intentions as if she could possibly recoil from his kiss.

They kissed, slowly, then more passionately. She poured her relief, her love for him, into their embrace. “I love you so much,” she said, when actions didn’t seem like enough.

Adam picked her up, pushed aside the plates and bowls laid her back on the table. “Aiden’s out until later, right?” he said, pulling off his T-shirt.

Mercy started to shimmy out of her jeans and underwear, nodding. 

*

That night, after they had made love again, this time in their own bedroom, he kissed her, lingeringly, and whispered, “I am very jealous.”

“Okay,” she said. That was fair. “Does it make a difference that you have no reason to be?”

“It’s nice to hear,” Adam said, after a moment. He rearranged them so she was pressed against him and he could curl around her, his breath on the back of her head. He snorted. “But no. It doesn’t make a difference.”

They lay still, together, quietly. She wrapped her arms around his, tangling their fingers. She still worried, about them, and how this would affect them. She worried about how they would work with Bran in the future because they would have to. He was the Marrok. She had hoped, one day, that their pack would be brought back into the fold. Would that even happen now? Could Adam bear it? Could she?

“I always—the wolf,” he continued as if they were mid-conversation, “always thought there was something there. From him. I was fine with it when it was hypothetical, you can’t go around punching every guy who thinks about your wife that way, but this is different. He kept your relationship a secret from you. From me.”

Adam kissed the back of her head. “He seduced you. Never mind his entirely suspicious memory loss. Whatever you think, however complicit you feel you were, he made the decision in the end. And he knew it was wrong but he did it any way. He wanted you and saw the opportunity to have you. For Bran that’s says a lot. That’s—that’s not something that sits well with me.”

All day she had wrestled with the memories as they came, fast and furious at her. She remembered the look in his eyes when he had been inside of her. She remembered _how she had felt_ and she crushed that thought, that memory, with the knowledge of who she was now, whom she loved now.

“He loved you. Not as a daughter. Maybe he still loves you.”

She swallowed. It was a terrifying thought. Bran was _so much_. Too much power. Power and presence and scarily magical. The idea of someone like that, feeling that way about her made her feel – powerless, somehow. Vulnerable. And yet strangely invincible. 

“He gave me away at our wedding,” she said, the stray thought popping into her head.

“Yeah, and I hope it stabbed him in the heart,” Adam said gruffly.

She both agreed and didn’t. But, still, “Thank you. For today. For being so understanding and kind. For being you.”

He nuzzled the back of her head. “I told you. I love you; we will get through this.”

She closed her eyes and said a little prayer, thanking God for him, for bringing her to him. With him, she knew she could do anything.


	3. 5 Years After that

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happiness was a modern construct for short-lived lives so he dismissed his own ‘happiness’ as irrelevant. What Bran had always sought was security, the ability to lay his head down and not be afraid of what the morrow would bring.

Through the miasma, Bran heard the electronic click of the door unlocking. He had been aware of her presence, closing in on him, and just that creeping nearness was soothing to the monster that lay within. However, it was only when she slipped through the door silently that he felt the tension in his shoulders ease, that he could really believe she was here, that they both might be safe.

Leah dropped her bag in the open door of the closet and glanced at him, sitting in his meditative pose on the bed. “Hmm,” she said, stripping off her blazer, kicking off her shoes. Her eyes lingered on his before dropping to the hole in his abdomen, covered in bloody gauze. “That looks nasty.”

Bran couldn’t speak; the wolf wouldn’t let him.

He watched his mate undress. Blouse, silk, followed by the tight navy pants. She draped both of these over the chair. She wore a delicate white brassiere underneath with matching panties. She had a new cross dangling between her breasts – diamonds, he thought. Someone else’s diamonds.

She paused as she was unhooking her brassiere. “What?” she asked and he realized he had made a noise.

“The necklace,” he managed.

Leah smirked, knowingly. “Yes, it’s pretty isn’t it.” She turned her back on him – _turned her back on him_ – and the brassiere dropped from her body. He was up, pressed against her naked back, before he had even blinked. He cupped her breasts in his hands and bit her neck, just managing not to break skin.

She froze and then relaxed when he didn’t draw blood. “He’s closer than I thought.”

Bran, again, couldn’t say anything, just held her heated flesh, his eyes closed tightly as he fought back to gain control. She smelt of nothing but herself. No other man had touched her. At least, not recently.

With difficulty, she reached up and undid the necklace. It dropped between her fingers with a metallic sizzle and she pooled it onto the desk. “Better?”

With effort, Bran managed to unpin himself from his mate, take a step back, the feeling of her skin an imprint on his hands.

“Aren’t you going to undress?” she asked, turning to face him as she peeled the panties from her body.

He was only wearing sweatpants. He shucked them off. She barely looked at him.

“Let’s get this over with,” Leah said, crawling onto the bed before flopping onto her back. She bent her knees and then, with a smile at him that could have frozen seawater, parted them.

Bran’s entire body flinched forward towards her before he caught himself, digging his heels into the carpet. _You did this,_ his wolf scolded him, in all the non-verbal ways he could communicate. _You did this._

“That’s right. You stay there,” Leah said smugly, arranging herself with a small wiggle and running a hand from her collarbone, down between her breasts, across her abdomen, to rest, gently, on the curve of her pubis. She tortured him, delicately stroking herself with her long fingers, running the pads over the smooth skin of her inner thighs, her other hand toying with a nipple. She sighed, a few times, closed her eyes. Her legs bowed, further, and her index finger traced the puffy line of her nether lips.

Transfixed, Bran stared at that index finger, watching as it slowly, teasingly, parted flesh.

He had been hard since the moment he had felt her leave the elevator. Now he ached for her. Not just his body, but his mind, his unforgiveable _heart_ , ached for her. Longed for her.

A second finger joined the first as Leah started to stroke herself in earnest. Bran pushed the heel of his hand into his mouth and bit down. She wore a faint smile that flickered only when her fingers brushed over, but did not linger, on her clit. He could smell her now, a scent that told him that she was _ready, ready, ready_ for him, that he should be _allowed_ …

But Bran was not allowed.

Leah opened her eyes. When she looked at him, her eyes were deep pools of desire. She put the two slick fingers into her mouth and sucked. Bran bit down on his hand so hard that he drew blood.

For a long, singing moment, Leah held him captive. Then, finally, she spoke. “Come on then,” she said.

*

He wasn’t allowed to kiss her mouth, that was the second rule. No foreplay, no kissing on the lips. _That_ , she reserved, for men who loved her.

Bran felt his fingers tear into the mattress as he sunk himself inside of her. This moment, this moment of laying claim to her, had to be memorized, had to be appreciated, _worshipped_. He had to go slow. It would be over, all too soon.

He kissed and licked the mark on her throat from earlier. Moved his attention to the other side, sucked her flesh into his mouth so that it bruised. She was quiet underneath him where once she would have been loud, encouraging him on, calling his name. Now she watched him, drinking in the sight of his undoing, even as her hips rose to meet his every thrust, her heels digging into the base of his spine.

For five years, they had honed this ritual. One visit every six months kept the beast just about contained, with clearly defined ‘emergency’ protocols for when the beast in him was close – like it had been today. They lived a handful of hours apart and met in the middle, in a small hotel that was just shy of seedy.

He had fucked his mate in nearly every room of this hotel.

Leah’s back arched. “Close,” she gasped. She meant _nearly over_. He changed their positions, flipping them so that she was on top. She snorted. “Oh, of course.”

He lay beneath her, one hand over his mouth, as she took the pace and rode him. He could watch her forever, his beautiful mate, her hair cascading down her back, her faced tilted up with pleasure. The urge to kiss her was so strong his mouth tingled with it. He could feel the boiling build of his climax, held back on a knife point for the moment that hers hit. He reached forward to brush the pad of his thumb between her thighs, where the little bundle of nerves awaited, and she caught his wrist. “No,” she said, panting. “You know the rules.”

“It’s not foreplay,” he managed, his voice hoarse. 

“Semantics,” she hissed.

But she let go of his wrist and he flipped them again so he could lie between her legs, his face almost touching hers. His hips moved in a small, forceful jerks and he squeezed his hand between them, slid his fingers to her clit and watched her start to go over the edge, watched her eyes dilate, catch her breath on his mouth. _No kissing_ , he thought desperately, as he ground himself against her and she made that first, precious noise and clenched around him.

His climax hit him in a rush, a glorious burst of release, of relief, of freedom. He pulled back so he could pound into her, force more of those forbidden pleasurable noises from her until she was whimpering and he was spent, the wolf was caged once more.

She held him, close, for a few precious seconds. He licked the sweat from her throat, tasting them both. Then, “Get off me,” she said.

*

She showered first – presumably because she couldn’t bear the smell of him all over her – and he lay on the bed, naked, imagining the water running over her body. The wound in his abdomen was throbbing. It was healing, slowly, thanks to the poison in the sword that had broken his skin. Bran’s beast had taken the opportunity of Bran’s near-death to rise close to the surface, so close that even Charles had been afraid.

Leah came out, gently perfumed with the neutral soap she brought with her. “I suppose you don’t want to shower?”

He shook his head. He knew she meant because of the wound but he preferred to carry her scent for as long as possible.

She dried in front of him, a light torture in comparison to everything else. He reflected that he had been a fool to have never taken the opportunity to dry her himself, all those times he had watched her step out of the shower. All those times he had joined her in the shower and never thought to linger afterwards, stroke her skin, all those soft, innocent parts that deserved his attention.

“So, what happened? That still looks, and smells, pretty bad.”

“Stabbed with a sword, no less.”

She ‘hmm’ed and used the meagre towel to dry her legs briskly, her rounded behind waving around temptingly. “Fae?”

“Yes. Sent by a Gray Lord. Charles thought I was going to die.”

Leah tossed the towel away and pulled her panties back on, breasts jumping with the wiggle of her hips, nipples pebbled. He regretted not spending time on her breasts, not taking her into his mouth. _Next time._ “But you didn’t.”

“I didn’t,” Bran sighed. Not this time. She pulled the towel from her head and took a comb from her bag, started detangling her hair. “It’s so long.”

“Yes, I quite like it.”

“It’s like it was when we met,” he added, because he was a glutton for punishment, apparently.

She met his eyes in the mirror and he saw the tell-tale flicker of anger, quickly suppressed. “Yes. I suppose it is.”

She’d been wild, when they met. Part of a huge werewolf pack that roamed the Great Plains, women and men with little care for the human virtues they’d left behind. Leah had fought her way nearly to the top of that pack and hovered there, trapped under the aegis of an Alpha female who treated her as half-daughter, half-nemesis. In time, Leah would have killed her, would have taken her place, if she hadn’t met Bran. If Bran hadn’t seen her from afar, seen her flick her long blonde hair, seen her tease and flirt with the men in the pack in a way an honorable woman of the 1800s would never. He had wanted her, known he could have her with the confidence of a man who had overpowered every werewolf he had ever come across, man or woman. She had been raw and demanding, selfish. She wanted power, wanted the strength that he could give her. With her, he knew, he could be just as selfish as well.

In the two hundred years, Bran had not changed but Leah – unforgivably – had.

She plaited her damp hair, coiled it on top of her head, and dressed. “I have something,” she said, pulling a brightly colored cube from her bag and demonstrating neatly his thoughts. “A present. For the baby.”

Charles and Anna had finally got their wish and were the proud new adoptive parents of a baby, a boy. Bran supposed Leah must still speak to Anna, to know that. He was jealous, immediately, that someone was speaking to his mate when he wasn’t allowed to. “That’s kind,” he said, the words coming out paper-dry.

She glanced at him, derogatory. “It’s not. It’s what’s expected.”

Bran understood that. Many of the behaviors he exhibited were because they were ‘expected’. He mimicked humans as much as anything else. “You still thought of it. That’s kindness.”

Leah shrugged. She picked up her bag. “I’ll see you in a couple of months.” She looked around the room. “This is one of the better ones, isn’t it?”

“405,” he said, agreeing. His favorite.

Then she left him. Again.

*

Anna wanted the baby Christened, wanted her family and the pack to attend. Bran encouraged it; his people wore crosses that were made stronger by their prayers and beliefs, even if he personally had no attachment to religion. Any protection the child had, by whatever means, was just fine by him.

“I’ve invited Leah.”

Watching, hearing, his mate’s name pass others‘ lips gave Bran no pleasure. He turned away from his daughter-in-law, engaged the email program on his laptop and watched the emails stream in. “I doubt she’ll come.”

Anna nodded, her eyes on the baby that was trying to climb up her legs. Leah hadn’t stepped foot in Aspen Creek since he had told her what he had done. He had spent a restless few weeks tracking her down, afraid she was heading straight for Mercedes. She hadn’t. His mate – his jealous, vengeful mate – had apparently matured enough to recognize that the actions of a mere girl were far outstripped by the actions of the man who had long ago promised her his fidelity.

Leah had her vengeance – on him alone.

He saw Anna daily, part of the established routine to keep his beast at bay. When Charles had found Anna, the thought that she might be useful to him personally had crossed his mind, but only fleetingly. He had thought himself stable then. Thought the woman in his bed would never leave him and the cage he had created for all three of them would suffice.

Now, she spent two hours with him a day, sitting, talking, eating lunch. If he travelled, Anna went with him. The baby was a complication they had not yet addressed. 

“Is there anything you want to talk about?” she asked, bending down to scoop the baby up and bounce him on her knee.

“Not particularly.” Then, Bran re-thought. “No, I’d like to know more about your conversations with my wife. How often do you speak?”

“Once a month. If that,” Anna said, deliberately downplaying it, as if he wouldn’t notice that the idea of them voluntarily speaking wasn’t an anomaly. Like many dominant females, Leah did not get on well with women. It was instinctive, too instinctive for her to rise above it. Those women who were less dominant, Leah wanted to _dominate_ , not a comfortable thing for many, even those who were long-used to pack life. Those who were closer to her in power, Leah constantly reinforced her superiority, tested them for weaknesses – in wolf form that was through fighting, snapping, biting. In her human form, it wasn’t so different. Leah would be the first to acknowledge that her dominance was more obvious in her wolf form. Verbal play was not her strength.

Anna and Leah had clashed, frequently. Leah didn’t like that Anna was special, had a place in the pack that was unique to her, and had her own autonomy. Anna didn’t disrespect Leah, because she understood how pack hierarchy worked, but equally didn’t let Leah dominate the way that Leah’s instincts would understand.

And Charles loved Anna and Bran had made the fatal error of growing fond of her. Leah could not forgive Anna for that.

“And what do you talk about?”

His daughter-in-law gave him an age-old female look. “Bran. You know you won’t like my answers.”

He did and he didn’t. He had once known his mate’s daily life inside and out. What she did. Who she talked to. Now he had no shape of it. “Humor me.”

She sighed and turned the baby outwards so he was looking at Bran with big brown eyes. Bran had been singularly uninterested in his own children as babies so if she thought this was some kind of tactic to soothe him, she had another think coming. “We talk about the pack. Dillan. Kara, of course.”

Bran’s eye twitched. Kara, of course. Leah would speak to _Kara_ as well. Kara who had been as close to a daughter as Leah had ever let a female be.

“She tells me very little about her life. Certainly nothing that would be interesting to you. She spends very little time with the local pack.”

He knew this. The Alpha gave him reports on Leah’s every move, voluntarily, of course. He had never requested it. Bran was sent photos when someone saw her, sometimes just a written report of her activities. _Mrs. Cornick was at the market today buying vegetables and peaches_. _Mrs. Cornick was seen_ _at the hairdressers_ _and took an Uber_ _home._ _Mrs. Cornick went shopping at a boutique with a female friend from work. Please find attached a dossier on the female friend complete with bank account statements._

He knew there was a half-fae man who sometimes took her out for drinks, for dinner, and would leave her apartment in the middle of the night. He had seen photos of this man. Tall, broad shoulders, dark hair, stood like a predator. This man was fucking his wife, Bran knew. He knew and he wanted to kill him and only the agreement he had with the fae, that agreement that kept his people safe, held him in check.

Leah likely knew that as well. It was probably why she had chosen him. 

That man had bought his mate diamonds.

He came back to himself and realized Anna was singing and the baby in her arms, clutched close to her chest, was wailing.

“You went away,” an ashen-faced Anna said, tears running down her face in fright.

He could feel his son was coming, summoned by his mate’s frantic call. He had truly scared her. He was not looking forward to Charles’s response to this.

He put his face in his hands and swore. “Charles should look after the baby, next time,” Bran said, apologetically.

*

Once Charles had tracked Leah down, they had hashed out the terms of their separation in a parking lot outside a diner, with Charles and Anna as their mediators. For they had needed them. Twice, Leah had gone for him, her fingers shaping into claws and reaching for his eyes and only Charles had been able to hold her back.

Bran would have let her hurt him; he deserved it, deserved every drop of blood she wanted to draw. He questioned, sometimes, whether he deserved to die for it, for that one night with Mercedes, for enacting his own selfish desires.

Perhaps, his wolf thought. A man did not betray his mate. A mate of longstanding loyalty, unquestionable trust. He had broken her heart; he had seen it in her eyes when he had told her the truth.

In the parking lot, she had been crude. “You can fuck me twice a year to keep your monster at bay, that’s it. That’s all that’s left of the bargain we made. In return, I have access to everything – the money, the hotels, the property.”

He had agreed without looking at Charles.

It was Anna who had put in the addendum. “If there’s an accident, if something serious happens and his wolf is close to the surface, can we call on you, then?”

Leah had hesitated, then looked at him for the first time. Sneered as if the thought of him inside of her disgusted her. “Life or death. No less than that.”

*

It was manageable, but only just.

Happiness was a modern construct for short-lived lives so he dismissed his own ‘happiness’ as irrelevant. What Bran had always sought was security, the ability to lay his head down and not be afraid of what the morrow would bring. When his wolf had grown too dangerous after Blue-Jay Woman’s death, he had married and mated for that security, for his as well as those around him. It was a functional need that required a functional solution. 

In Leah, Bran thought he had found a woman he could never love – a woman whose baser instincts frequently overrode her sense, who only cared about herself and who spared no thought for improving who she was. He had seen her fight, seen her hunt and kill, seen her run fearlessly in to danger, confident in her own strength. The wolf had approved of this mate. She would be hard to kill but if she died, Bran would not lose his mind over her.

Leah embodied everything that Blue-Jay Woman hadn’t been.

Decades passed and Leah proved to be hard to kill, just as the wolf expected. She adapted to the role he required of her, molded herself into the woman he thought he needed and then went a step further. She cared for his pack, in her own, unwilling way. She had opinions, she was unfailingly honest, even when she was wrong. She was jealous, temperamental and difficult. She hated _hard_ when she hated and rarely forgave. She bounced back when he chastised her, when he hurt her, and didn’t hold grudges. She barely tolerated his sons.

At some point, she had – notwithstanding her own best interests – started to love him. Despite everything. And she was the one knew him best or, rather, knew him at his worst. That she had managed to love him was a feat in itself. 

Bran had always thought that it was the mating itself, the bond, that did this very functional job of securing his wolf. Perhaps in the beginning that had been it. But Bran had failed to notice in the years that passed that Leah had become more than just a woman in his bed, the foundation of the cage that he had built. She was a companion, a touchstone. When he came home, which he did more frequently once he was mated, it was to Leah – wherever she was.

Bran had, in his efforts to dismiss her as just a function, failed to acknowledge what she added to his life, how she completed it, until she punished him by taking it away.

He had nonchalantly considered himself as smarter than his mate. In this, she had proven to be the clever one.

*

Leah attended the Christening and made sure to really stick the knife in when she did so, slipping onto the bench next to him smelling ever-so-faintly of another man. Someone who didn’t know her so well, didn’t know her scent as well as his own, might not have noticed. But Bran did, his now Pavlovian reaction to seeing her – _sex, sex now_ – muffled by the presence of the competition.

Bran held his grandson and thought of murder but smiled and jiggled a toy in front of Dillan so that he didn’t cry. As well as Anna’s family, those well-behaved members of his pack was there, watching him, watching them together. The last time they had seen them as a pair, Leah had tried to burn the house down and Asil had been the one to drag her away. 

It behooved them, the Alpha pair, to look civilized.

Afterwards, during the milling-outside-the-church portion of the Christening, Anna extended an invitation back to the house which Leah politely declined. “I don’t think that would be wise,” she murmured. She held her arms out to the baby. “May I?”

Bran felt himself flinch as Anna handed the fragile human child over to one of the most notorious werewolves in Northern America. In her arms, the baby regarded Leah seriously, seeming to understand the significance of this moment.

“He’s very handsome, isn’t he,” Leah said. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. She handed him back to Anna and he heard Charles exhale quietly with relief.

Leah turned a fathomless expression to Bran. “Walk me to my car?” she asked.

Her Range Rover was parked further away that he was expecting, not in the small parking lot of the church but across the road, partially up a dead-end track that led to precisely nowhere, tucked off-road. She trod carefully in her delicate, impractical heels. “I thought that went well,” she said.

“Agreeable,” he replied, wondering what it was she was wanted to speak to him about. 

They reached her car. He went to open the driver side door for her but she opened the door to the back seat instead.

“I thought we’d try somewhere other than that hotel,” she said, gesturing to the capacious back-seats.

Bran sucked in a breath. “You smell like him,” he told her, even as all the blood in his body drained south to his cock.

Leah smiled, and it was shark-like. “I know.”

And he would go back to the house and every Other within those walls would know their Marrok had just fucked his estranged wife in the back of her car. His humiliation would be complete, which was, without question, her intention.

“You really were made for this,” he told her, not without admiration, as he climbed into the back of the car he had bought for her.

Leah slammed the door behind her and straddled him, pulling her dress up her thighs and revealing her lack of underwear. “Thank you,” she said sweetly. “Take off your pants.”

*

It was noticeable now how few people asked after Leah. They all knew, of course. Their world was a small one. They had known of the casual disdain he had shown for her and now they knew that they were estranged. Why that was, no one but his closest knew and no one was telling, not even Leah.

Few of the wolves outside of Aspen Creek really knew Leah, however. Knew _of_ her, perhaps. Knew she had killed at his behest, that her emotionless expression was the last thing some saw before she meted out his final punishment. There were one or two of her old pack still alive and they only added to the tales of his mate’s infamy.

He was sure that many wondered what he had done that such a woman would leave him. 

Nobody asked but Bran now found he wanted to tell. He wanted to confess. He wanted – _needed_ – someone to forgive him.

*

The ongoing conflict with the Hardesty witches bubbled up every few months as each side withdrew after each attack to lick their respective wounds. Whilst Charles waged war with finances, they attacked Bran’s people from the inside-out, showing long-term planning that put even he to shame.

It was when it was revealed their poisonous fingers had spread to Europe that Bran was forced into a position he had not wanted.

“Need I remind you, whilst he was undoubtedly deeply unpleasant, he didn’t actually kill anyone last time,” Bran reminded them, in response to the general outcry. 

“That we know of,” Anna muttered. 

“We can’t put Angus out again like that. It’ll have to be somewhere else,” Charles said thoughtfully, seeming to accept Bran’s proposal and moving straight on to operationalizing it. “And somewhere with as few of his migrated wolves as possible.”

“New Orleans is out. As is Montreal. All of Florida. Oh, no darling, not that,” Anna leaned forward to pull the pen Dillan had found under Bran’s desk, swapping it quickly with a chewable ring that the baby soon shoved into his mouth. She settled back. “What about the Fingerlakes? Aaron’s pack doesn’t even have any females at the moment. No one for Chastel to creep on.”

Bran smiled because his daughter-in-law had a neat strategic mind. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“What about Leah?” Charles asked bluntly. “Do you want her there? If anyone is going to cause you problems, it would be Chastel.”

He had already thought about it and had come to no conclusions. “I don’t know.”

“I’m sure she wouldn’t deliberately do anything in front of Chastel. Even she knows what he’s like,” Anna said, frowning.

Bran wasn’t sure about that. But then he wasn’t sure about much of anything to do with his wife any more.

*

“I broke things off with the half-fae,” she said, next time they were together. She was sitting at the desk, naked, plaiting her hair. It now reached mid-way down her back in a thick wave and Bran had wrapped it around his wrists, pinning her to the bed as he had her. In return, she’d scratched her nails down his back. There was blood on the sheets. He would have to take them with him, as a precaution. From experience, he knew he would be charged extortionately for their replacement.

“Oh?”

“Yes. I got the feeling our arrangement wasn’t working for him any more. There’s a vampire—“

“ _No_ ,” Bran said.

She smiled placidly at him in the reflection of the mirror. “Do you really think you have a say in it?”

Bran lifted his eyes to the ceiling. “Werewolf blood is addictive,” he said, mildly. “And you love to be bitten.”

Leah made a considering noise, sucking air through her teeth. She pinned her earrings in. “A reasonable point.”

He settled back into the pillows, the subject of the other men she saw dropped for the time being. “A delegation is coming from Europe. I need to brief them on the Hardesty witches.”

“Chastel?” she surmised, pulling a face.

“Yes.”

“Not Seattle again?”

“No. New York. The Fingerlakes.”

“Yes, of course. Aaron doesn’t have any females. Nor any of the migrations,” she added, bending down to pick up her underwear.

Like him, like Anna and Charles, Leah had an encyclopedic knowledge of the location and details of all the wolves in Northern America. Unlike the rest of his family, she had not met most of them and had simply learned this through conversations and taking note. “Would you consider attending?”

Leah shimmied into her panties, then picked up her brassiere. This time it was a lacy pink one with darker ribbons around the edge of the cup. He had briefly contemplated asking her to leave it on but the lure of her bare breasts had been too much. “As, what? A lone wolf? Or your plus one?”

Bran had never considered her as a lone wolf, just an estranged member of the Aspen Creek pack. It devastated him that she considered it otherwise. “More of the latter than the former,” he admitted. “It’s a precaution.”

“I can understand that. Chastel brings out the worst in you. Or did, I suppose,” she said, smiling toothily.

“Yes, you really take that honor, now.”

Her shirt dress followed, then her trench coat. “I’ll have to think about it. When is it?”

He told her and then slid to the end of the bed as she beckoned. Leah pulled a T-shirt from her bag. “As promised.”

Bran lifted the T-shirt – one of his – to his nose. Her scent permeated it. “Thank you.”

She paused and leaned forward, taking his head in her cupped hands. “Tell me again.”

“I love you,” he said, as earnestly as he could.

She held his gaze, blue eyes to his green, then shook her head, pulled away from him. “I still don’t believe you.”

Bran nodded, letting out a deep breath. He had learnt that this was not something he could prove with words alone. “Okay.”

*

They were together one more time before the Europeans arrived and this time Bran posed his questions before he could get too distracted.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she told him, shrugged out of her jacket. His disappointment was palpable and even she winced. “I’m sorry. It’s just… I think he would bait you and it would confuse things for me.”

He wondered what she meant by that. Would she stand by him against Chastel? He certainly hoped so. Even he, monster that he was, was surely outpaced by Chastel. “He will take particular pleasure in bringing you up,” he said, sighing.

She acknowledged this. “I can be nearby, though. I could visit with Michelle, in Buffalo. She said she wasn’t going to attend, not after what happened to Sunny.”

Bran conveyed his ever-lasting disapproval of Michelle with a look. Leah snorted and unconsciously ran a hand through his hair, then pulled off her sweater, tossed it onto the other bed. “I know. To be fair to her, she knows her weaknesses and one on one combat _is_ one of them.”

“Sunny was _human_. Michelle is a werewolf with over a century of experience behind her as the mate of the Alpha of one of the largest packs in the country.”

“Yes, and she wants to keep it that way.” Leah shrugged. Michelle’s unremitting cowardliness was something that Leah appreciated. Her dominance was accepted, if not actively encouraged. Leah made Michelle feel secure, safe in the knowledge that if anything happened, Leah could take care of it. It was one of the most uncomplicated relationships Leah had. “Not all of us have a death wish, Bran.”

Bran grumbled and went to undo the buttons of her slacks. She draped her arms over his shoulders and he leaned his forehead against her abdomen, his lips just grazing her skin. Her stomach tensed, flinching away from him. “So is that a yes? You want me to stay in Buffalo? Just in case?”

“Yes,” he replied, lifting his head to look up at her. “Please.” 

*

He did not see her until they next scheduled ‘visitation’, as Anna called it, as if one or both of them were in prison. For once, he arrived there after Leah did.

She sat up, putting the magazine she was reading down. “You look dreadful,” she said.

Bran could do nothing but agree with this. He toed off his boots, encrusted with snow. The journey had been appalling and he’d been exhausted before he left. “I think you’ll be snowed in.”

This didn’t seem to concern her. She lifted her magazine. “If we have all night, you should get some sleep. It looks like you need it.”

She clearly meant in the other bed. 312 had two Queens and she was lying bang in the middle of one of them. “I want to sleep with you,” he told her, bluntly. “Please.”

Something in his tone must have conveyed the level of tired desperation he felt. Without saying anything, she shuffled over. Bran stripped off everything but his underwear and crawled in next to her. Compared to him, her body was a couple of degrees cooler, despite his only just coming in from outside. He didn’t dare put his arms around her, just lay on his front, the length of him pressed against her side. He vaguely thought he ought to stay awake, appreciate this moment of true domesticity, the kind of which he hadn’t felt for half a decade, but between one blink and the next, sleep took him.

He woke, abruptly, just before dawn. “Oh god,” he said.

She was still beside him, asleep like a girl, one arm tossed over her head. Her eyes opened. “There you are,” she murmured, stretching.

 _What a waste_ , he thought, climbing over her in a haze, burying his face in between her neck and shoulder. His hands roamed over her.

“Perilously close to foreplay,” she murmured, running her hands through his hair.

She didn’t sound angry, just warm and amused and drowsy. He kissed her neck, helpless to stop himself, and made his way up, over her chin to her mouth. She opened under him and he sank into her, desperately, poured himself into the kiss. She withdrew, gently. “Stop,” she told him.

Bran rarely felt anger about this situation. Whatever Leah felt she needed to do to take back control, he was a willing participant. For a moment, however, all he felt was anger – anger that she was punishing him, anger that it was working so well. He lowered his face, forehead resting on her collarbone and breathed through it. He was just tired, he told himself. Months of Chastel in his territory, stalking the wolves that had fled him. He was going to have to kill him. When they found him.

“I heard,” she said.

He was loath to but if he was going to speak of the man, he wasn’t going to do it lying on his wife. He rolled off her. “Yes. It’s a colossal mess.”

“How did you let it happen?”

“Let it happen? He’s not a toddler, Leah. I can’t put a fence around him. He just took advantage of in the invitation, this time. There are enough of his ex-wolves here now that apparently fear him enough to shelter him.” He sat up and rubbed his hands over his face, then really looked at her, at the sliver of material he could see. He pulled the covers down. “This is pretty,” he said, touching the lace of her night dress.

She didn’t normally bring something to sleep in because, normally, they didn’t sleep and she would leave. “I looked at the weather forecast,” she admitted.

Bran smiled, recalling his surprise at the heavy snow. “I did not.”

“Anna says you and Charles have been working non-stop.”

“Pretty much. I’ve started to hate the Leer Jet. You would be very grumpy with me,” he added because it was something he had thought much on. If she had been at home, and he had been away so much, she would have been calling him to complain.

“And you would have got angry with me.”

“Because I was an idiot,” he said, grunting. He lay back down next to her. “Imagine being annoyed that your wife wanted to see more of you.”

Leah shrugged and turned on her side, started rubbing her foot along his calf. “You preferred spending time with other people.”

Bran thought about it. He wouldn’t have said he _preferred_ it. Increasingly he had begun to wonder if he had deliberately avoided spending time with her, as if the exposure would have revealed the changed nature of their relationship, or what he wanted from it. He looked at her, found her watching him. “Are you still angry with me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, smoothing a hand down his chest. “But mostly you just make me sad.”

He nodded and caught her hand, brought it to his lips, kissed her palm. “Will you be more careful? I wouldn’t put it past him to try and find you. I’d ask the local pack to put a guard on you if I didn’t think you’d find it insulting.”

As expected, her eyes flashed with pride. “Because it would be. I can take care of myself.”

He smiled against her hand. “I know, my love.”

Leah pulled her hand away from him with a huff and sat up to pull off the silky night dress. “Let’s do what we came here to do,” she said.

*

He felt her pull drastically on his power, in the middle of the night, and then the phone rang. “Leah?” he said, answering it.

“Do I have your permission to kill him?” she panted.

Bran sat up bolt upright. “Yes,” he said. He heard the phone drop at her end, followed by a wet sound, then a groan. The snap of bone breaking. An exhale.

Landline phone pressed to his ear, he ran down the stairs to where his cell phone was charging in his office. He messaged Charles. _Chastel with Leah._

Then he stood in his office, in the dark, listening.

Bare feet padded across floorboards towards the phone. A hand fumbled it. “He’s dead,” she said, and though she was breathless, there was triumph in her voice.

He tilted his head back in relief. He wanted to ask _Are you sure?_ but Leah was efficient. Efficient enough to incapacitate Chastel and then phone him to ask for permission.

“I’m sorry,” she said. She knew the way he was about old wolves, even the monstrous ones. “But he came here to rape and kill me.”

“Then he deserved to die. Well done,” he said. She was old-fashioned, in a strange way, about fighting a male werewolf. She would confidently battle any female in the world, superior to them in capability and power, but the males had always been his responsibility. And Chastel had been old and powerful. And had thought he could hurt the Marrok’s mate.

Charles sent him a message. _I’ll get the jet ready._

“What should I do?” 

“Wait for me,” he said. “I’m coming.”

“Good.” And then she hung up, leaving him with nothing but the dial tone.

*

Bran had never stepped foot in her apartment. He’d thought about it, of course. She did occasionally go away for a weekend, as the reports told him. _Mrs. Cornick has gone to stay with friends in a cabin up north._ He would have got a distinctly disturbing pleasure in prowling through her apartment, looking at her things, seeing what strange men had touched. 

“It’s nice,” he said because it was the expected thing to say.

It was nice. It was a bright and airy apartment. She had made it homey. She had that kind of creative flair. He hated it, of course, because it was hers and not theirs. He looked at the corner couch and wondered if the fae man had fucked her on it.

Leah gave him a frank stare, as if she could read his mind. “Perhaps we could deal with the body first?”

In death, Chastel looked small. The local Alpha had made a call to their cleaners, who would be coming that afternoon to start the process of werewolf removal. He crouched down by the body of the man who had been in the world almost as long as he had.

Leah put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

“You have nothing to be sorry for. How did he get in?”

“Fire escape in my bedroom.” She grunted at his expression of surprise. “It was a compromise. The apartment had everything else that I wanted. I had extra security put on the window but few people know I’m here so I never really worried too much about it.”

“All the local pack knows you’re here.”

“Yes, but they’re ours,” Leah said, using the pronoun in a way that warmed him.

“Well someone talked.” He stood up, slowly and faced her. He held his hands very loosely to his sides. She was dressed in sweats and a T-shirt. There were bruises on her neck and marks on her wrists and Bran’s beast howled with rage. “I’d like to hold you.”

She nodded and reached for him, his strong mate. “I’d like that.”

*

Bran sent Charles home and stayed in town, so he could go apartment hunting with her. He didn’t like any of them. “Why don’t you just buy a house?” he asked, when he had dismissed the sixth apartment because any fool could use the balconies beneath and to the sides to get access to it. “Then we could control all the ingresses.”

She sighed. “The third one was fine,” she reiterated.

They had gone to a restaurant she knew for lunch. He wondered if he would make the reports from the local pack. _Mrs. Cornick was see dining with Mr. Cornick for lunch al fresco. They had pasta and shared a bottle of wine._ She very carefully picked the jalapenos from her dish and put them on the edge of his plate. Leah had the palette of a toddler.

“This is nice, isn’t it. We never ate out together,” she said cheerfully, picking up her wine glass.

Bran had a mental list of all the things they would do if she came back to him. It was, to his regret, extremely basic. He added ‘eat out together’ to it. “This is a nice location,” he admitted, forking up the chilies and eating them one after the other. He didn’t particularly like eating outside because his back would always be to potential danger but he was confident in her abilities to see something if he couldn’t. He had been surprised that she suggested it. Maybe she had dined here with the fae. 

“What will be the repercussions of his death?” she asked, thankfully changing the direction of his thoughts.

“Someone else equally horrible will no doubt rise up.”

“Libor?”

Bran nodded. “Or maybe Pigou.”

“You told me he hasn’t been seen for centuries,” Leah said, frowning at him, rotating her fork in her pasta.

“Doesn’t mean he’s dead. He and Chastel hated each other. They were similarly power hungry.” He’d long believed Pigou had just been biding his time.

They ate quietly for a while, before Bran broached the topic that most occupied his mind. “I would like to talk about us,” he said.

“Would you,” she said, narrowing her eyes.

“I would, yes. I would like to understand where you are, with regards to there being an ‘us’. If you think we will ever be able to reconcile. And in what way. Or if I am to go on, forever, being punished – as I undoubtedly deserve to be,” he added, lest they all forget. “I would like to be able to talk about these things.”

Leah sipped her wine and twirled a finger through her hair. “I don’t know.”

In a way that was encouraging. Five years ago, even four, three years, her answer would have been ‘no’. His punishment would have been infinite. They wouldn’t have been able to have lunch together, or talk about anything other than his betrayal and how he had hurt her.

“Okay,” he said. He poured the last of the wine. “Can we talk about it again? Next time?”

“My answer might not change.”

“That’s fine.”

*

“Daliah called me.”

Bran sat back from his desk and took a moment to place this Daliah, the smile on his face from hearing Leah’s voice not dimming. “Utah Daliah?”

“Yes. She wanted to know if you were available.”

“For what?” he said, stupidly.

Leah was silent, tellingly so.

“Oh,” he said. “ _Really_. She called _you_ to ask you that?”

Was she suicidal? Bran wondered. He knew she had taken Henry’s death hard but this was a very round-a-about way to get herself killed.

“I don’t believe she was calling for herself,” Leah said frostily. “And in fact I appreciated her honesty.”

“You did not,” he laughed. If icicles could have formed down the phone line, Leah would have shot them into his face. He laughed some more, the image of the conversation crystalizing spectacularly in his mind. He wished he’d been a fly on the wall. “Did you tell her I wasn’t?”

“I told her I didn’t know.”

His humor abruptly evaporated. “You can tell her I am not. _I’m not_ , Leah.”

“And yet that didn’t appear to be the case when we were married,” she said viciously, then hung up.

“We’re still married,” he sighed to the dial tone. 

*

“How are things?” Mercy asked him, tentatively, one of their rare phone calls.

Time passing meant that he was able to speak to Mercedes with almost the same sense of freedom as they had before. Or, rather, she was able to speak to him. He still felt like there was an unvoiced question in her voice, whenever they spoke. It asked _Do you still want me, like that?_

If she asked, one day, he would tell her the truth. That he cherished her, that he loved her, that she – like many others – belonged to him. But that one night they had together had been a moment of madness. A selfish desire of his own that he had acted on because opportunity allowed, because it had been so long since he had taken what he wanted and because, to be brutal, he was sometimes just a man. When the morning had come, his thoughts had been about protecting Leah from the truth and Mercy from Leah. He had never felt guilt like that, never put in place a lie of that magnitude. It had followed him, every day.

In his head, Mercy asked him again, _But, do you still want me, Bran?_

She was mated and married, now. Bran did not lust after another man’s mate. That was his answer. Black and white.

Adam had asked him that, point blank, after that first tumultuous phone call from Mercedes to tell him that she remembered everything. Bran had sworn it to him and imbued his promise with his own magic, acknowledging that if he broke that promise there would be repercussions. He had lost some of Adam’s respect, he thought, which was disappointing. Time would tell if he would ever get it back. 

“Things,” a vague, unsatisfying word, “are fine.”

“Anna says you’re kind of… dating.”

“She does, does she.” He supposed, in a sense, that might be true – if seeing a person more or less every six months could be considered ‘dating’. “Then, if we were dating, I would say _things_ are… rocky.”

“Rocky.”

“There are highs. And there are lows.”

“There should be counselling for werewolves, I think,” Mercy said, with a little bit of a laugh, as if she too had things she wished she could talk about with a professional.

“You know, I had the same conversation with Anna not that long ago…”

*

Sometimes, Leah would flip. He was never certain if there was something he did that triggered it or if, more likely, she just felt angry at him all the time. One moment she would seem fine, the next she would start screaming at him.

Leaving the bathroom the next time – Room 129, one of the better ones - he caught a violent armful of her, mid-scream, and he reflexively tucked her into him and rolled them onto the bed, muffling her mouth with his hand.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeated, whilst she bit him. He pinned her arms to her and found himself having to exert considerable force. She was strong, his mate.

She screamed into his hand, curling into herself as if physically pained. He felt her tears as they rolled down her face. He kissed what he could – the curve of her ear, the back of her head, the exposed skin of her shoulder – repeating his apologies, over and over again, until she quietened.

He let go of her mouth and they lay, drained, on the bed.

“How could you,” she said, panting slightly.

“I’m sorry. I… was wrong.”

Leah turned to look at him, her face shiny and tight from salt and water. His chest squeezed. “If it had been _anyone_ else,” she said, the tears falling again. She turned her face away and pressed it into the comforter and she shook with her sobs. “Why did it have to be _her?_ ”

This had frequently been her refrain. “I’m sorry,” he said, like a broken record. “I’m so sorry.”

She sniffled. “How often did you go and visit her at school?”

“I didn’t visit. She didn’t know. I just checked up on her.”

“How often?”

“Maybe twice a year,” he sighed. It had been the worst kind of coincidence that the fae’s magic had struck when he had been at her school. 

“Why?” 

“Because she was my responsibility.” Her body had relaxed so he loosened his hold on her but didn’t let go, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing his face into her hair. He was starting to find whatever laundry soap the hotel treated their sheets with strangely appealing. “Nothing more than that.”

“Except you wanted to fuck her.”

Bran kept his breathing even. “If I did, I don’t know it. Until.” Until he had opened his eyes and found himself there, with her, her body beneath him and himself moments from being inside of her. No, he had not known. And when he did, he had been powerless – too blinded by hormones and instinct – to stop himself. Even the beast inside of him had been too overwhelmed by the circumstances.

He reflected that sex had never made him quite so stupid before.

“I knew it,” she whispered.

Leah had claimed this before. He knew there was no pathway to responding to that which would lead to anything other than an argument and he didn’t want to make excuses. He stroked her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“I hate that it exists. That there’s this thing that happened. I think about it all the time, you and her. I can’t stop it.” She snorted and turned to him again. “Maybe you could erase that from _my_ memory?”

“Always an option,” he said lightly, though her words stabbed at him.

She made a noise that might have been a laugh and rolled within his arms to lie on her back, gazing up at him. Her eyes were red-rimmed. “How many people know about that little talent of yours, Bran Cornick?”

“Just our family,” he said, wincing. The unnatural magics that the witch had passed down to him that survived the Change were not something he had been desperate to share. “And Mercy and Adam, of course.”

“Have you ever done it to me?” she asked in a small voice.

“No, never. I swear it.” She gave him a doubtful look. “I haven’t,” he repeated, smoothing her hair back from her face. It seemed natural to lean down, to brush his lips against hers, so he did so and hovered, waiting to see how she would react. Her eyes drifted from his, to his mouth, and back again. When nothing adverse flickered on her face, he leaned forward again and pressed his mouth to hers once more.

It was probably the most innocent kiss they had ever exchanged, short of the one in the church on their wedding day.

Leah was the one who changed it, opening her mouth to draw him in and wrapping her arms around him, pulling him down to her. Kissing her was glorious in its familiarity, a homecoming, and once it started he never wanted it to end. She pulled at his shirt and he tugged at the hem of her dress, allowing themselves the briefest of separations so they could pull each other’s clothes off. He licked his way into her mouth, drank her in.

“Never again, Bran,” she said against his lips. “Promise me.”

“Never. Never again,” he swore, pulling back to look at her, then diving back to capture her mouth. “You and only you.”

-END-


End file.
